RUTHFULLY YOURS

Recently uncovered information about what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demands from those to whom she deigns to speak tells us all we need to know about how “progressive” leaders and wannabes really view the rest of us. From President Obama on down, it’s clear that it’s not as their equals.

To be graced with her presence, Mrs. Clinton expects to be treated like a rock star, and arguably even better. In doing so, she has effectively appropriated the three-letter abbreviation “HHH,” once the exclusive property of 1968 presidential candidate and selflessly driven [1] Democrat Hubert Horatio Humphrey, for herself — as Her Highness Hillary.

Public records obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal show [2] that our 21st century HHH extraordinarily obligates [3] those who run the events at which she delivers a contractually limited 90-minute address.

On the financial side, the events must, among other things, provide round-trip private jet transportation on “a Gulfstream 450 or larger jet.” The going rate for the use of a G450 is over $6,000 — per hour [4]. She also requires “a presidential suite” for herself and three to five additional rooms for her staff. Mrs. Clinton has quite an entourage, including an advance team of two to scout the event site, as well as several travel aides. Naturally, she demands expensive room, board and perks for all of them. All of these expenses, and more, are over and above Her Highness’s $300,000 standard speaking fee, which was marked down to a rock-bottom $225K for the UNLV Foundation.

HHH’s controls over the proceedings, as described by the Review-Journal, are particularly galling. They include:

Final approval of all moderators or introducers.
Being “the only person on the stage during her remarks.”
No more than 50 photos with no more than 100 people.
No press coverage or taping of her speech.
No physical record of what she said, except for a transcript to be given to her — prepared by a stenographer the event must hire and pay.

What can help account for the racist character of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri? Is racism justified? Is black racism a new phenomenon?

I remember these scenes vividly.

Sometime in the mid-1950’s, when I was about ten years old, I was in the family car with my foster father on some errand. My foster father was an Italian-American Lutheran truck driver who married into an Irish-German family. We had to stop on Perrysville Avenue (this was in Pittsburgh), right in front of Perrysville High School (as it was known then). A black cop was directing traffic at the five-way intersection, which had no traffic light. My foster father remarked angrily, “Damned niggers are taking over everything!”

Now, I had never seen a black man before, and did not understand my foster father’s anger. But the seething malice was evident in the way he uttered the words. I gave him what I guess he perceived to be a “dirty look,” but which was simply my astonished but mute inquiry.

When we got home, he beat me with the strap of his belt. I guess he saw reproach in my glance.

In another episode of “misunderstanding,” the family had company over. We were in the living room and there was a lively conversation on politics, in which I did not participate. I don’t recall exactly what the subject was, and I think I was in my pre-teens. But either my foster father or foster mother asked me: “What color are we, Eddie?”

I answered: “Beige.” Well, I was the only member of the family who read books. My foster parents had conniption fits every time I consulted the pristine set of the Encyclopedia Americana they had bought for show and shelved in a glass-door cabinet. I had encountered the term somewhere, and it seemed more appropriate and truer than was “orange” or “white.” The term was in my vocabulary, not my family’s.

So, “beige” was not the answer any of the adults expected to hear. I think they all sat stunned, and my foster parents looked embarrassed.

When the company left, I again heard the swoop and felt the sting of my foster father’s belt.

I do not know who they are, these people. They are not my people.
My sister is writing her memoir about what happened. In Toulouse, Sarah woke up one morning to find everything changed.

None of that brotherhood with Hitler spared anyone from the ovens.
Germans were directing traffic in this fabled French town. Quite a sight for a 9-year-old on her way to school. I was born a month after Hitler invaded, July 20, 1940. After a tortuous sequence of events, we escaped over the Pyrenees. My father carried me on his back in a backpack. My mouth was stuffed with cotton in case I cried out and alerted the Gestapo, which were hounding our footsteps.

My parents, Noah and Ida, never fully recovered. I provide details of this elsewhere.

For now I mention this to indicate that Holocaust survivors come in various shades. None of us “owns” the Holocaust.

I make it a practice never to judge Holocaust survivors, mainly those who endured the camps. They have special rights.

But do those rights extend to openly blaspheme the Jewish State? As these purported Holocaust survivors go public in their denunciation of Israel, have they lost their immunity? Do I have the right to strike back? I don’t know. It is risky. But I cannot remain silent.

I am reading about certain Holocaust survivors who have grouped together to blame Israel for everything under the sun. To further rub it in, they openly declare their love and pity for the Islamist terror group Hamas. The slander was gladly picked up by the BBC and Britain’s The Guardian, whose headline reads like this: “Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants Accuse Israel of Genocide.”

By outsourcing the Ukraine problem to Germany, the U.S. echoes 19th century mistakes that led to repeated conflicts.

Hapless in response to Vladimir Putin’s wars, successive American leaders are left puzzling over the Russian’s place in time. “Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century,” said President George W. Bush in August 2008, after Russia’s invasion of Georgia. When the Russian force of “little green men” took Ukraine’s Crimea last February, Secretary of State John Kerry exclaimed, “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.”

Mr. Putin has proved impervious to complaints about his outdated behavior. On Monday morning, Ukraine reported that a column of 10 Russian tanks and a couple of armored vehicles charged over Ukraine’s southeastern border into areas held by Russian rebels. Russian artillery now fire at Ukrainian military positions from inside Ukraine’s territory, NATO said on Friday. Ignoring objections from Kiev, Russia announced its intentions to send a second “humanitarian aid” convoy in a week of military trucks dressed in white, bringing and taking who knows what.

As the military pressure grows on the pro-Western government in Kiev, the Europeans are adding their own. Plainly anxious that these latest escalations risk a replay of 20th century wars, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday turned up in Kiev to push for an accommodation with Moscow. The chancellor pressed the Ukrainians to cease fire and ruled out new EU sanctions against Russia. So Mr. Putin comes into talks Tuesday in Minsk with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko with fresh leverage.

The crisis in Ukraine revives one of the oldest clashes in the heart of Europe—the “bloodlands,” to use Timothy Snyder’s phrase—between autocracy and liberalism. For centuries this region was shaped by “the Polish Question”—what should happen to the difficult, independent-minded people between Russia and Germany. With the end of communism, and EU and NATO membership, Poland was taken off the chessboard. Ukraine is now on it.

ISIS makes liberals rediscover the necessity of hard power.

So now liberals want the U.S. to bomb Iraq, and maybe Syria as well, to stop and defeat ISIS, the vilest terror group of all time. Where, one might ask, were these neo-neocons a couple of years ago, when stopping ISIS in its infancy might have spared us the current catastrophe?

Oh, right, they were dining at the table of establishment respectability, drinking from the fountain of opportunistic punditry, hissing at the sound of the names Wolfowitz, Cheney, Libby and Perle.

And, always, rhapsodizing to the music of Barack Obama.

Not because he is the most egregious offender, but only because he’s so utterly the type, it’s worth turning to the work of George Packer, a writer for the New Yorker. Over the years Mr. Packer has been of this or that mind about Iraq. Yet he has always managed to remain at the dead center of conventional wisdom. Think of him as the bubble, intellectually speaking, in the spirit level of American opinion journalism.

Thus Mr. Packer was for the war when it began in 2003, although “just barely,” as he later explained himself. In April 2005 he wrote that the “Iraq war was always winnable” and “still is”—a judgment that would have seemed prescient in the wake of the surge. But by then he had already disavowed his own foresight, saying, when he was in full mea culpa mode, that the line was “the single most doubtful” thing he had written in his acclaimed book “The Assassins’ Gate.”

Anti-Semitism in Norway, where I have lived for twelve years, is over the top. I have never quite gotten used to it. Every now and then I hear or read something that reminds me that I am living in Europe, in a country that was occupied by the Nazis, and where a lot of people were perfectly okay with that. I think it is fair to say that anti-Semitism in Norway is most virulent among the cultural elite – the academics, intellectuals, writers, journalists, politicians, and technocrats – although thanks to the media and schools, it has trickled down to many ordinary Norwegians, some of whom may never even have met a Jewish person.

This anti-Semitism manifests itself in various ways. When Obama became president, former Norwegian prime minister Kåre Willoch said things did not look promising because Obama had “chosen a Jew as chief of staff.” The chief rabbi of the Oslo synagogue reportedly receives a pile of hate mail every day. During the Gaza War, a major Norwegian newspaper had trouble finding Norwegian Jews who were willing to comment on the record about the war: they said they were scared of repercussions. Norwegian academics have sought to ban contacts with Israeli universities. Norwegian activists have encouraged boycotts of Israeli products. There is terrible anti-Semitic bullying in the schools. Every so often, a high-profile professor or activist or famous author will write a virulent op-ed or give an angry speech denouncing Israel and insulting Jews. Nothing could be safer for them to say; no one will seek to harm them physically or otherwise – as opposed to what would happen if, say, they made certain public statements about Islam. And they know this. Norway’s most respected newspaper cartoonist, Finn Graff, who has admitted that he never draws cartoons about Islam because he is scared for his life, has frequently drawn cartoons comparing Israelis to Nazis; he knows Jews will never harm him. These anti-Semitic op-eds and speeches and cartoons are never remotely fresh, witty, or original; all they ever do is recycle tired cultural-elite clichés. And their creators get nothing but praise from their colleagues, who celebrate them as courageous truth-tellers. It is much more acceptable to scream “kill the Jews” at an anti-Israeli protest than it is to criticize Hamas.

It has been 13 years since 9/11 and the West is still reluctant to link the non-ending parade of jihad groups with Islam. The West is also in denial about the similarities all radical Islamic groups share. It is important for the West to realize that there is a natural division of labor between the different terror groups. Some groups specialize in terror against non-Muslims and Western governments while others specialize in terrorizing Arab governments that refused to follow Sharia. But the truly sophisticated groups are those who reside in the West, calling themselves ‘moderate’ while at the same time defending and controlling the direction of Islamist goals through advocacy, diplomacy, negotiation and PR.

All of the above types of Islamist groups work together in perfect harmony like an orchestra that sings to the tune of “Allahu Akbar.” And when Islamic terrorism and beheadings anger the world and turn public opinion against Islam, that orchestra starts playing a different tune to confuse and prevent the world from uncovering their coordinated handy work. While one group proudly takes credit for the terror, another publicly denounces it. But most groups, while enjoying the power and attention the terrorists have bestowed on them, stand by with a look of victimhood saying: “I am a victim too because you condemn me and my peaceful religion when I did not do anything. That is not Islam and you are an Islamophobe.”

Not only is there division of labor amongst Islamist groups, but these groups also often change roles, tactics and appearances — after birthing other more radical terror groups to do the dirty work of terror. Because the West and some Arab governments refuse to deal with terror organizations, these organizations play a game of presenting a face of rehabilitation and moderation, while delegating the terror and assassinations to newer groups. Old guard terror groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and Fatah were able to change color and they assumed a new, but only cosmetic, appearance of moderation, but not before birthing the more violent Al-Qaeda and Hamas.

The West was told the MB and Fatah were now the moderate and humanitarian face of Islam that could be counted on and that could run Islamic government. Islam will present itself as working with the rest of the world only for the sake of establishing the Kalifate. The West has been only too happy to welcome the new face of the old terror groups to the camp of moderation. But the new face of evil after the MB became Al-Qaeda.

A number of Hamas operatives who were arrested and detained by Israel during Operation Protective Edge admitted to the use of civilian establishments, such as mosques, schools and hospitals, as covers for terrorist activity, according to a report released on Monday by the Israel Security Agency (ISA).

The report cites extensive and detailed testimony from the Hamas members to support Israel’s long maintained assertion that the group operates behind human shields, which often accounts for civilian casualties as it exchanges blows with the Jewish state.

The report came as the Hamas controlled Gaza religious affairs ministry claimed Israeli fire throughout Monday destroyed four mosques, raising to 71 the alleged total number of mosques targeted over the past seven weeks.

Detained militants Muhammad Ala’a and Muwaz Abu Tim told ISA they were recruited for Hamas military activity at the Alabrar and Khaled Ben Alulid mosques in Khan Yunis and Bani Suheila, respectively. Another militant, Abdel Rahman Balousha, said the Alsafa and Alabra mosques in Khan Yunis serve as meeting points for Hamas terrorists. He added that in the Alabra mosque the assembly point is in an underground shelter.

Iyad Abu Rida said that the Hamas-affiliated Jamaat Asnad association is located on the second floor of the Altikva mosque in Hazara while another Hamas operative said terrorists used the same mosque to pass along orders regarding where to plant improvised explosive devices to target Israelis.

Another pair of Hamas terrorists said armed police activity was carried out adjacent to the Uthman ibn Ifan and Abdallah ibn Masoud mosques in the Alkheif junction area, the Hassan Albana and Abu Dir mosques, and the Haroun Alrashid school.

Thanks to my friend Dr. Andrew Bostom- whose first and second opinions both in medicine and on every aspect of Islam are right on target…..rsk

William Christian Bullitt, Jr. ( 1891-1967)was an American diplomat, journalist, and novelist. Although in his youth he was considered something of a radical, he later became an outspoken anti-communist.

William Bullitt, April 20, 1936 to Sec State Hull:

“[T]he loyalty of a believing communist is not to the nation of which he is technically a citizen but to his faith and the Caliph of his faith. To such men the most traitorous betrayals are the highest virtues”

In 2006, when I first published Volume One of my trilogy, Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state, I wrote the following in the foreword:

“The Israeli government of Ariel Sharon from 2004 onwards is increasingly criticized, especially over what became known as the “disengagement plan,” a euphemism for unilateral retreat from Gaza and a course of action, which already has had profound and dire implications for Israel’s survival.

“With Ariel Sharon in a coma after suffering a massive stroke, his successor, Ehud Olmert, is still considering a suicidal policy of retreat from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) under a new euphemism – the ‘convergence plan.’

“If this policy is not reconsidered, in the face of continuing and relentless Arab and Islamist aggression, it will force hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children from their homes and land in what is their Biblical and ancestral Jewish homeland.

“The territory will inevitably fall into the hands of a Hamas regime controlling the so-called Palestinian Authority and backed by the totalitarian Islamic nightmare that is Iran. It will also become a new base for anti-Israel terror on a massive scale just as has happened in Gaza. Since the retreat from Gaza, southern Israeli towns and villages are daily bombarded with rockets by Palestinian terrorists.

“Yet if the Olmert government decides to forge ahead with its “convergence plan,” it will result in Arab missile bombardments of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and the rest of central and northern Israel from the West Bank (Biblical Judea and Samaria).”

Well that was written eight years ago. Ariel Sharon passed away and Ehud Olmert left office in disgrace. But Israel has been suffering in all that time from growing aggression by a barbaric Hamas regime with non-stop missile bombardments from the Gaza Strip.

Tragically, my words back in 2006 have come true. Indeed, as I wrote, “unilateral retreat from Gaza …has had profound and dire implications for Israel’s survival.”