RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/did_jay-z_hear_about_the_cubans_who_risked_their_lives_rather_than_watch_his_little_walk_in_havana.html

Another side of Cuba that Jay-Z did not see is that of a dozen Cubans found in the ocean escaping the island.

Two different cruise ships picked up Cubans in make shift rafts trying to escape Cuba. These Cubans chose to risk their lives rather than greet Jay-Z and spouse in the streets of Havana.

My guess is that Jay-Z and spouse do not have a clue that some Cubans would rather risk death than watch their little walk in Havana. Yes, a few Cubans wanted nothing to do with that “educational” trip after all. I think that Cubans can smell a propaganda charade miles away. They’ve had their share of charlatans who smoke cigars for 50 years.

Mr & Mrs Carter also showed incredible hypocrisy when they said nothing about Roberto Zurbano, a black Cuban who lost his job for writing about racism in Cuba.

Zubrano wrote the truth, i.e. there is great dissatisfaction in the Cuban black population about the revolution’s priorities and choices. He touched on a topic that the “revolution” avoids. The Castro PR machine, with the assistance of too many clowns in the US, has pushed the idea that “white rich Cubans” left for Miami and that “blacks” finally got their due. Not really. Not really at all.

Zubrano confirmed what Brian Lloyd French, a Canadian writer, said to me a few weeks ago. Brian confirmed that blacks are excluded from positions of responsibility in the government as well as those joint ventures that international companies do with the Castro family.

Zubrano focused on black Cubans. However, the Cuban “revolution” has failed all Cubans, unless you are part of the party elite, the privileged class that gets to watch US baseball games on cable TV and go on the internet.

Overall, a bad week for Jay-Z and the Cubans that he left behind. Maybe the next guy who gets to go on an “educational” trip will actually educate himself about Cuba.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/happy_birthday_israel.html If countries were people and Israel was an American, it would begin to collect Social Security in nine months. It would be eligible for a reverse mortgage and only a few years from mandatory withdrawals from its 401k. We’d be talking retirement and watching the grass and the grandchildren grow. In national terms, Israel […]

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/15/under-pressure-hagel-replaces-dronefare-medal-with-distinguishing-device/

WHO IS DUMB AND DUMBEST? HAGEL OR SENATOR JOE MANCHIN (D W.VA)?????

After pushback from Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has decided to roll back plans for the dronefare medal.

On Feb. 13, the Pentagon established of the Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize the achievements of “a small number of service men and women who have an especially direct and immediate impact on combat operations through the use of remotely piloted aircraft and cyber operations.”

Lawmakers were concerned about the proposed precedence of the new medal over combat medals including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Production on the DWM was stopped after Hagel agreed to review the medal.

“While the review confirmed the need to ensure such recognition, it found that misconceptions regarding the precedence of the award were distracting from its original purpose,” Hagel said in a statement today.

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the concurrence of the service secretaries, have recommended the creation of a new distinguishing device that can be affixed to existing medals to recognize the extraordinary actions of this small number of men and women,” he continued. “I agree with the Joint Chiefs’ findings, and have directed the creation of a distinguishing device instead of a separate medal.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Hagel’s statement confirmed why he voted for his confirmation: “Simply put, he does the right thing.”

“Secretary Hagel’s commonsense approach to reviewing this important issue proves to our combat veterans that their sacrifices are valued,” Manchin gushed. “I truly am grateful for his leadership and for his willingness to listen to all who care so deeply about this issue.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/04/15/the-men-responsible-for-starving-egyptian-families/?singlepage=true Egypt’s pound has fallen by 40% since last December, from 6 to the dollar to 8.25 to the dollar on the black market. The prices of basic food items like beans and milk have risen by more than that, pricing all forms of protein out of the range of the half of Egyptians who […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/04/two_new_palestinian_myths.html Two new Arab myths have surfaced in the past week to complicate attempts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to procure the resumption of the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The first myth can be directly attributed to Mustafa Barghouti — a presidential candidate for the now defunct Palestinian National Authority […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418491184138804.html The Castro regime wasn’t going to allow an easy victory for the opposition candidate who has pledged to stop sending oil to Havana. Venezuela held a presidential election on Sunday to replace left-wing populist Hugo Chávez, whose death was announced on March 5. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) put up Nicolás Maduro, […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578424520066643466.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion They say history repeats itself as farce, but it usually takes longer than this. A day after the U.S. government published its list of Russians banned from travel to the U.S. under the Magnitsky Act, Russia responded Saturday with two lists of its own. The first is what the Russian Foreign Ministry dubbed the […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-glazov/the-devil-in-history/

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vladimir Tismaneanu, a Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of several books, including Stalinism for All Seasons: A History of Romanian Communism (UC Press), Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism and Myth in Post-Communist Europe, and Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel. His new book is The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century.

FP: Dr. Vladimir Tismaneanu, welcome to Frontpage Interview. It is an honor and a privilege to have you with us.

Congratulations on this fascinating, brilliant and captivating book. It is a stupendous achievement.

I simply couldn’t put it down till I finished it.

Tismaneanu: It is a pleasure for me to engage in this dialogue. I know some of the contributors to Frontpage; I have known David Horowitz and Peter Collier since the 1980s. Your kind words honor me, especially coming from someone with your family background.

The book tries to offer a comparative perspective about those regimes that have taken a horrible toll on families like yours and mine. I am sure you noticed how important it is in the logic of my demonstration to highlight the extraordinary insights of the great novelist and moral thinker Vassili Grossman. You and I know that the Devil is not simply a theological construct, a whimsical metaphor or a speculative fantasy. Living within totalitarianism, surviving within an infernal universe, has been a real experience for millions of human being.

WES PRUDEN: CHIPPING AWAY AT THE IRON LEGEND

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6920

Margaret Thatcher is getting her revenge on the Nancy men who mocked her in life, and who continue to throw rocks at her in death. Her reputation as “the Iron Lady” who towered over a plastic age is secure, and she’s getting a funeral that her girlhood idol Winston Churchill got before her. Big Ben, the famous clock that towers over Parliament, chiming the quarter-hour since 1859, will fall silent during the obsequies just as it did for Sir Winston nearly five decades ago.

This has put Thatcher critics in a froth of toxic bile, as the accolades continue to pour in from all over the world. Civility is always scarce in politics – it is, after all, a contact sport – but some of the rage in Old Blimey moves close to the edge of the charts.

A cartoon in the Guardian, a leading newspaper of the left, depicted the Iron Lady descending into hell, the front page of the Socialist Worker headlined her death with the single word “Rejoice,” and a movie marquee in the tough neighborhood of Brixton paid its respects with the message “Margaret Thatchers Dead LOL,” for “laugh out loud.” The BBC called the song, “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” tasteless and offensive, but played it to mark her death, anyway.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2013/04/15/kosovo-a-frozen-conflict

Kosovo, a Frozen Conflict
Until a week ago it appeared that the government in Belgrade would give up the last vestiges of its claim to Kosovo for the sake of some indeterminate date in the future when Serbia may join the European Union. A series of unreciprocated concessions over the past few months have encouraged the KLA regime’s mentors in Washington and their European backers to expect the final capitulation. In the end they overplayed their hand by demanding everything and offering nothing.
The demands have been escalating for years. The final objective was stated in December 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to Serbia to declare that the “path of Serbia into the EU can only lead through the normalization of its relations with Kosovo”—i.e., Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo. This precondition was stated with her customary subtlety and diplomatic tact, but at least it had the quality of candor which made it difficult for Boris Tadić and his eurofanatical Democrats to pretend that “the European path” did not entail eventual surrender.
The defeat of Tadić last May and the subsequent establishment of a new, allegedly nationalist coalition government in July did not result in any change of course. Quite the contrary: Washington and Brussels were surprisingly comfortable dealing with Šešelj’s former No. 2, Tomislav Nikolić, as president, and a former Milošević loyalist, Ivica Dačić, as prime minister. The key “Westerner” in the triumvirate is Aleksandar Vučić, known for his embarrassingly groveling statements on visits to Germany and the U.S.