RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://blog.american.com/2012/05/ten-burning-questions-for-obamas-secret-terrorist-release-program/

The Washington Post reports this morning that the Obama administration “has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups”—a program “U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.” The Post writes:

[T]he releases are an inherent gamble: The freed detainees are often notorious fighters who would not be released under the traditional legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence — and U.S. officials warn them that if they are caught attacking American troops, they will be detained once again.

I’m sure that threat is quite a deterrent. The paper continues:

[O]fficials would not say whether those who have been released under the program have later returned to attack U.S. and Afghan forces once again.… Unlike at Guantanamo, releasing prisoners from the Parwan detention center, the only American military prison in Afghanistan, does not require congressional approval and can be done clandestinely…. U.S. officials would not say how many detainees have been released under the program, though they said such cases are relatively rare. The program has existed for several years, but officials would not confirm exactly when it was established.

This is unacceptable. The Obama administration owes the American people some answers. Specifically:

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/lying-climate-scientists-lie-again?f=must_reads

There’s a great scoop in The Australian today about more lying climate scientists making stuff up – about death threats this time.CLAIMS that some of Australia’s leading climate change scientists were subjected to death threats as part of a vicious and unrelenting email campaign have been debunked by the Privacy Commissioner.

Timothy Pilgrim was called in to adjudicate on a Freedom of Information application in relation to Fairfax and ABC reports last June alleging that Australian National University climate change researchers were facing the ongoing campaign and had been moved to “more secure buildings” following explicit threats.

Needless to say the University did everything it could to prevent the investigation, arguing that the release of the climate scientists’ emails (why am I getting an eerie sense of deja vu here?) “would or could reasonably be expected to.endanger the life or physical safety of any person”. But doughty Sydney blogger Simon Turnill appealed against this stonewalling drivel and won.

And here’s what was revealed when the 11 relevant emails were eventually released.

Ten of the documents “did not contain threats to kill or threats of harm.”

Of the 11th, the Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said: “I consider the danger to life or physical safety in this case to be only a possibility, not a real chance.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1852

ANDREW ROBERTS’ MAGNIFICENT BOOK “THE STORM OF WAR” DETAILS THE ENORMOUS MILITARY CONTRIBUTION OF THE SOVIETS TO DEFEATING THE NAZIS. OF COURSE, THEY THEN WENT ON TO ENSLAVE EASTERN EUROPE, MEDDLE IN AFRICA, CUBA, ASIA AND CAUSE MILLIONS OF DEATHS…..RSK

May 9 is Victory Day, the day of the Nazis’ capitulation to the Soviet Union that ended World War II. In contrast to other significant dates in Israel, this is one we share with other nations who fought to defeat the darkest regime in human history.
In descriptions of World War II, it is hard to find information about the million and a half Jewish soldiers (women, too) who were in the Allied armies. In a certain sense, this was the largest Jewish army in history, who fought the most evil enemy. These soldiers formed the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given to later generations.

In recent years more attention has been given to this topic. The Israeli government is establishing a museum for the Jewish fighters in World War II in Latrun, recognizing that we should raise the banner for one of the greatest chapters of our people’s bravery. The heroism of Jewish soldiers was unique: While most of those fighting the Nazis were fighting for values such as freedom, Jewish soldiers were fighting for the very existence of their people. One third of the Jewish soldiers, about half a million, fought with the Red Army. Many served in commanding positions and more than 160,000 Jewish soldiers received medals for bravery. They participated in the liberation of concentration and death camps, where they witnessed firsthand the horrors the Nazis perpetuated. Two hundred thousand Jewish soldiers in the Red Army fell in battle; this is about 80 percent of the Jewish soldiers killed overall in the Allied forces.

For more information or to schedule an interview, contact:
David Reaboi, dreaboi@securefreedom.org or 202-719-2410

End the Shariah War On Women: Center for Security Policy Launches Campaign

Washington, D.C., May 8, 2012 This Thursday, May 10th, at 10:00 a.m. in the Bloomberg Room of the National Press Club, the Center for Security Policy will launch a national public education campaign to ask America’s leaders to end the real ‘war on women’ — the Shariah War On Women.

Shariah law oppresses women’s liberties and human rights, denying them their unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:

Life: Shariah destroys women’s lives through honor killings, physical abuse, female genital mutilation, and rape. This occurs not only to Muslim women but also to Christian and secular women through acts of kidnapping, imprisonment and murder.

Liberty: Shariah crushes women’s liberty through censoring free speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.

Pursuit of Happiness: Shariah punishes women’s pursuit of happiness by denying equal rights and freedom in marriage, divorce, child custody, education and employment

A panel discussion, moderated by Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. and featuring several prominent civil liberties and human rights activists, will launch the national campaign to end the Shariah War On Women. Panelists will include:

* Nonie Darwish: Ms. Darwish is an American human rights activist, writer, public speaker as well as founder and Director of Former Muslims United and founder of Arabs For Israel. She is the author of a new book titled The Devil We Don’t Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East. She is also the author of Now they Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror and Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. She speaks frequently at college campuses, religious institutions and civic association meetings. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy.

* Cynthia Farahat: Ms. Farahat is an Egyptian political activist, writer and researcher. In December 2011, Ms. Farahat testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives on the roots of the persecution of the Coptic Christian minority in her native Egypt. In 2008-2009, she was program coordinator and program officer at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty in Cairo, a multi-national free market think tank. She co-founded the Liberal Egyptian Party (2006-2008) and served as a member of its political committee. She is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and the Center for Security Policy and works with the Coptic Solidarity organization.

* Clare Lopez: Ms. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism issues. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center for Security Policy, The Rise of the Iran Lobby, where she serves as a Senior Fellow.

* Karen Lugo: Karen Lugo is the founder of The Libertas-West Project and in this capacity she responded to a request from French jurists to submit a brief to the Conseil d’Etat on the legal grounds for banning the burqa. Karen is also Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. In this role, she directs the Center’s litigation in support of constitutional issues. She has submitted amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court on such issues as Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support to Terrorists. She is a visiting professor at Chapman Law School and co-teaches the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen is president of the Orange County Federalist Society lawyer chapter and sits on the Federalist Society International Law Executive Committee. She is also on the board of advisors for Trinity Law School in Orange County, CA and an advisor to UK Baroness Caroline Cox’s HART US. Karen is a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a frequent contributor to RedCounty.com, FlashReport, and contributing editor to Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts on the matter of sharia law. Ms. Lugo is an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights.

What: Panel Discussion launching the Shariah War On Women Campaign

Where: The National Press Club, Bloomberg Room
529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20045

When: 10:00 a.m., May 10th

The panel will be live streamed at www.theshariahwaronwomen.org.

The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.

For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.
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http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1847

We’ve got to hand it to radical Muslims for knowing how to push our buttons. Though I hate to rob anyone of credit where it’s due, this is probably more our responsibility than theirs. But at least they know a good thing when they see it, and have learned — the easy way — how to capitalize on that.
The gift the West has been handing radical Muslims on a silver platter since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 — when U.S. President Jimmy Carter abandoned the pro-American Shah of Iran in favor of Ayatollah Khomeini — is our willful blindness (to borrow the title of Andrew C. McCarthy’s brilliant book) to their culture of death.

This form of wishful thinking is not limited to Carter or any of his successors in the White House. Europeans have an even greater capacity to delude themselves about the phenomenon in their midst, responding to it with a mixture of snobbish revulsion to immigrants and politically correct appeasement.

Even Israel got into the act, when its leaders could no longer bear the idea that PLO chief Yasser Arafat — previously recognized by the Jewish state as a mega-mass murderer — could not be reasoned with like a rational human being who had the best interests of his people at heart.

Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate.
The good news. Thanks to folks like you, Conservatives united and we just pulled off a historic upset of Senator Dick Lugar in the Indiana GOP primary!

The bad news. We’re now facing a tough General Election campaign, and our bank accounts are depleted. We left everything on the table to win the primary. And our opponent, Joe Donnelly, has over $800,000 to spend immediately in an attempt to smear us to start the General.

That’s why I talked to my staff, and we just launched our Match Donnelly Money Bomb. I absolutely need you to join in.

Watch What You Say About Islam — on The Glazov Gang
by Frontpagemag.com
Fireworks break out between Tommi Trudeau, Rob Nelson and Nonie Darwish on Frontpage’s weekly television show.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/09/the-fate-of-a-chinese-dissident-on-the-glazov-gang-1-1/

http://www.examiner.com/article/icegate-high-ranking-intel-officials-linked-to-palestinian-money-laundering

ICEgate? High ranking intel officials linked to Palestinian money laundering

Jim Kouri Law Enforcement Examiner

What at first appeared to be government officials involved in embezzlement to the tune of more than a half-billion dollars now appears to be also connected to a Palestinian money-laundering operation, according to several Law Enforcement Examiner sources.

A top U.S. intelligence chief pleaded guilty last week as a result of a far-reaching federal fraud investigation that nabbed a total of five members of the Department of Homeland Security and may be connected to funnel money to a Palestinian ring, according to a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Examiner.

James M. Woosley, the acting director of intelligence for DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of more than $180,000 in a scheme involving fraudulent travel vouchers, and time and attendance claims, according to court documents.

The 48-year old former resident of Tucson, Arizona, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a charge of conversion of government money, according to the Department of Justice.

Four other suspects pleaded guilty to charges related to the Woosley case: Ahmed Adil Abdallat, 64, an ICE supervisory intelligence research specialist, pleaded guilty in October 2011; William J. Korn, 53, an ICE intelligence research specialist, pleaded guilty in December 2011; Stephen E. Henderson, 61, a former contractor doing work for ICE, pleaded guilty in January 2012; and Lateisha M. Rollerson, 38, an assistant to Woosley, pleaded guilty in March 2012. Abdallat pleaded guilty in the Western District of Texas, and the others pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia.

www.michelgurfinkiel.com

http://pjmedia.com/blog/not-over-yet-francois-hollande-faces-national-assembly-elections/?singlepage=true

Not Over Yet: François Hollande Faces National Assembly Elections

What if the new socialist president of France does not win them next month?

François Hollande, the socialist candidate, won the French presidential election on May 6. He got 51.63% of the vote against 48.37% for the incumbent conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Quite a good score, even if Sarkozy did much better than expected.

However, the presidency is only a first step. A lot will depend on the National Assembly elections, which are due to take place on June 10 and 17. If the socialists and their allies secure themselves an absolute majority, Hollande will enjoy quasi-monarchical powers for five years. If they do not, he will be a lame duck.

Americans are familiar with similar scenarios, except the United States Constitution provides a clear-cut separation of powers and thus preserves many of the presidential powers and prerogatives, even against a hostile or uncooperative Congress. Whereas the French Fifth Republic constitution, a creation of Charles de Gaulle in 1958, combines — in an uneasy and uncertain way — presidential and Westminsterian features, and thus turns any conflict between the powers into a ballistic zero-sum drama. In theory, France is not ruled by its president, as in the American presidential system, but rather by its prime minister who, as in the English Westminsterian system, is answerable to the National Assembly. As long as both officials are political partners, the president — endowed with such special powers as the right to call for an early election or a referendum — is a de facto but undisputed CEO. When they belong to different and competing parties, the prime minister takes over.

De Gaulle perfectly understood the logic — or the illogic — of his system: he made clear that the president, once deprived of electoral support, had no choice but to resign. He actually acted accordingly in 1969, when he abdicated following a failed referendum on comparatively minor issues. Things changed, however, when François Mitterrand, the Fifth Republic’s first socialist president, was faced with a conservative National Assembly in 1986: instead of resigning he agreed to become a lame duck — but a lame duck with teeth who made full use of his residual powers in order to undermine the cabinet, to hasten its fall, and to win a reelection in 1988.

A conservative and allegedly Gaullist president, Jacques Chirac, followed in 1997 when his party lost an early election he himself had called. For the five ensuing years, he “cohabited“ (to use the authorized French expression) with Lionel Jospin, the socialist prime minister. Both under Mitterrand and Chirac, cohabition led to such ridiculous situations as the president and the prime minister of France together attending international summits like G7 or the European Council.

Things went even further in 2002, when Jospin introduced — with Chirac’s assent — a constitutional revision that shortened the president’s term from seven to five years. Since the Assembly is also elected for five years, the obvious outcome was that the parliamentary election would closely follow the presidential one. It worked to Chirac’s advantage upon his reelection in 2002, and then to Sarkozy’s advantage in 2007.

Hollande is convinced that the same will be true about him next month. But will it? There is at least one precedent that he should consider. After being reelected in 1988, Mitterrand called an early election to get rid of the 1986 conservative National Assembly. What he got was a lame Assembly with a relative but not an absolute majority for the socialist party, and a weak centrist minority that could not act as a steady ally. Five years later, he lost the 1993 parliamentary election and was reduced to a lame duck position again. Since he was then dying of cancer, he could not again mastermind a socialist revenge; on the other hand, he was treated in an extremely respectful and dignified way by the day’s ruler, conservative Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/how-fbi-botched-zazi-arrest-but-blamed-nypd/ The arrest [1] of Najibullah Zazi on September 19, 2009, came more than a week after news broke about his involvement in a suicide bomber plot targeting New York City subways — one of the most advanced terror threats to the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks. But within days, finger pointing between law enforcement […]