http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/08/kicking-the-palestinian-addict Who’s in the mood for another Arab dictatorship? The Palestinians have faded from view lately. There’s been an “Arab Spring,” an intensifying Iranian issue, elections in the U.S., economic travails. True, the Obama administration and the EU keep forking over funds to the Palestinian Authority. But the obsession with securing sovereign statehood for the […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
For the last twenty years Israel has been swept into an obsession with few parallels except to the Dutch Tulip economy. Except instead of tulips, its commodity of choice is an even more insubstantial thing, the faint promise of peace.
Peace fever is the disease consuming Israel as surely as the Black Death took Europe. If the Dutch traded fortunes for flowers, the Israelis have traded away most of their territory for worthless pieces of paper that last about as long as tulips do. Mostly, like Madoff’s investments, after they wither and die it turns out that they were never worth anything to begin with.
Take the Camp David Accords, greeted with insane romantic fervor in Jerusalem and European capitals, but resented and despised by Egyptians because they were a reminder of how their army had failed to destroy Israel. It was a worthless accord that gave Egypt a vast amount of territory in exchange for maintaining a status quo that it had no choice but to maintain after losing multiple wars. With the fall of Mubarak, it was revealed that the Accords were never more than moonbeams and fairy dust. A puff of Arab Spring and they are gone.
Camp David was an illusion, but the Oslo Accords are a delusion. A tulip economy where Israel doles out fortunes in money, land and power in exchange for the promise of peace and an end to the violence… tomorrow, always tomorrow. The most devastating impact of the delusion isn’t on the cemeteries where children lie side by side with soldiers, on the broken homes and synagogues of Gaza, or on the tightening circle of terror around Jerusalem. As with all delusions, its most devastating impact is on the mind.
http://times247.com/
BOLTON: Dangerous fallout from China’s Chen affair
John R. Bolton
05/07/2012
BOLTON: Dangerous fallout from China’s Chen affair
Chen Guangcheng’s individual odyssey symbolizes large, indeed tectonic, political and social forces grinding away beneath the smooth appearance Beijing strains to convey. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1uGu9qB00
EDITORIAL: Panetta’s next war
Washington Times
05/07/2012
EDITORIAL: Panetta’s next war
America has a fresh national-security threat, an enemy is every bit as elusive as al Qaeda: global warming. That’s according to Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, who has declared war on climate change. This is a fight America can’t afford. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1uGuIeN00
Soros to lead $100m effort to aid Democrats
New York Times
Monday, May 7, 2012
News
After months on the sidelines, major liberal donors including the financier George Soros are preparing to inject up to $100 million into independent groups to aid Democrats’ chances this fall. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1uGuTXCE4
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/7/farewell-to-european-superstate/print/ Failed EU experiment is headed for a crackup In the space of two weeks, three European governments have fallen, sending shock waves across the Continent and calling into question the experiment that has consumed its elect for decades: the construction of a centralized, socialist superstate known as “Europe.” It may just be that the […]
The Road to Freedom Posted By Jamie Glazov
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/08/the-road-to-freedom/
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a celebrated conservative author, economist, and media personality. He was formerly the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University. He is author of the new book, The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.
FP: Arthur Brooks, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Let’s begin with you telling us what inspired you to write this book.
Brooks: For years, the free enterprise movement has done an incredible job making the material case for free enterprise and explaining how economic freedom makes people better off. By the end of the Cold War, we had pretty much won that argument. Most mainstream liberals now publicly eschew “socialism,” and concede that the market economy is the best way to produce material prosperity in the aggregate.
But where the left has where—and where free enterprise advocates have failed to respond—is on the moral side of the ledger. Sure, the left says, free enterprise makes us better off, but at a huge cost to our society and our values.
This argument is incorrect, but it’s effective because we almost never show up to debate it. I wrote this book to explain why I believe free enterprise is not just an economic alternative, but a moral imperative.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299251/elizabeth-warren-minority-crusader-artur-davis THE LADY’S “GONE NATIVE AMERICAN” IN A PATHETIC AND SHAMEFUL CAMPAIGN…..NEXT, LIKE HILLARY CLINTON, SHE’LL FIND A JEWISH GREAT AUNT….RSK Who knew that Massachusetts would provide an opportunity to add a touch of color to the almost-all-white U.S. Senate? Who knew that when Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren tailored her professional biography to cultivate ties […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299273/occupy-and-moral-infrastructure-thomas-sowell
Disregard for the law leaves society with mob rule.The “Occupy” movement, which the Obama administration and much of the media have embraced, has implications that reach far beyond the passing sensation it has created.
The unwillingness of authorities to put a stop to their organized disruptions of other people’s lives, their trespassing, their vandalism, and their violence is a de facto suspension, if not repeal, of the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that the government provide “equal protection of the laws” to all its citizens.
How did the Occupy movement acquire such immunity from the laws that the rest of us are expected to obey? Simply by shouting politically correct slogans and calling themselves representatives of the 99 percent against the 1 percent.
But just when did the 99 percent elect them as their representatives? If in fact 99 percent of the people in the country were like these Occupy mobs, we would not have a country. We would have anarchy.
Democracy does not mean mob rule. It means majority rule. If the Occupy movement, or any other mob, actually represents a majority, then they already have the votes to accomplish legally whatever they are trying to accomplish by illegal means.
Remembering Pim Fortuyn
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/08/remembering-pim-fortuyn-2/print/
On May 6, 2002, a Dutch sociologist and writer turned politician named Pim Fortuyn was gunned down in a parking lot in Hilversum in the Netherlands. He had just come from an interview (Hilversum, outside of Amsterdam, is the headquarters of the Dutch electronic media), one of many he had given in previous weeks in advance of the general election, which was scheduled for May 15. Despite the relentless smear campaign directed against him by the Dutch political and media establishment, Fortuyn’s party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, was doing extremely well in the polls, and it looked as though, barring a major upset, he would actually become the next prime minister of the Netherlands.
The prospect was remarkable, for more reasons than one. For one thing, if Fortuyn won, he would be the first openly gay head of state or government of any country in the world, ever. But under the circumstances, his sexual orientation was barely more than a footnote. What really mattered, and what gave hope to so many voters in his country and to observers around the world, was that Fortuyn was a social scientist who had gone into politics for one reason and one reason only: because he saw that the precipitous rise of Islam in the West, and especially in his own nation, was a catastrophic development, and he was determined to do everything he could to preserve the liberty and equality that he cherished before it was too late.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/08/che-guevara-adorns-reno-tahoe-airport/
Che Guevara Adorns Reno-Tahoe Airport
A painting of Che Guevara subtitled “Revolucion!” by a Mexican–American artist is on display at the International Airport in Reno, Nevada, USA.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara scorned Mexicans as “a rabble of illiterate Indians,” jailed artists at a higher rate than Stalin, co-founded the terrorist movement that pulled off among the first and deadliest airplane hijackings in the Western Hemisphere, and craved to nuke the USA.
In November 1958, Cubana Airlines Flight 495 from Miami to Varadero was hijacked at gunpoint by terrorists belonging to Castro and Che’s July 26th Movement. The plane crashed in Cuba killing 14 passengers. Che’s glowing face now greets all passengers preparing to board at Reno-Tahoe Airport. How very thoughtful of airport officials.
Actually, in the interest of historical accuracy, I should clarify that Che Guevara’s anti-American bloodlust could have been slaked only by nuking the American patrons of this American airport born before 1962. So he mostly craved to nuke the parents and grandparents of the Americans who patronize, run and fund Reno-Tahoe International Airport. This obviously includes those who awarded 1st place in the airport’s employee Art contest to the Che Guevara iconography now on prominent display.
Putin Back with a Vengeance
THIS ONE YOU CAN’T PIN ON OBAMA….REMEMBER WHEN THE HAPLESS DUBYA BUSH COULD “SEE INTO PUTIN’S HEART” DURING THE ‘RUSSIAN SPRING?”….RSK
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/08/putin-is-back-with-a-vengeance/
There was something grimly fitting about Vladimir Putin’s swearing-in ceremony this Monday for a new six-year term. While Russia’s president-elect paid tribute to “democracy” and civil society, baton-wielding riot police pummeled protestors and rounded up opposition activists on Moscow’s streets.
The rift between rhetoric and reality aptly sums up the legacy of Putin’s rule, which has seen a rapid erosion of democratic government and the rule of law in Russia. Putin’s third term promises more of the same. Even before Putin’s inauguration ceremony began on Monday, Russian police beat up and arrested over 400 people taking part in anti-government demonstrations. Some of the younger demonstrators were reportedly handed military draft notices upon their arrest.
Police continued the crackdown on Monday, arresting hundreds and clearing the main thoroughfares completely so that Putin’s motorcade could proceed. One Russian blogger posted images of totally deserted streets, with the sarcastic caption: “Joyous crowds of Muscovites greet the new cleanly elected president!” Dissent is alive and well in Russia, as the 20,000-strong weekend demonstrations suggest, but Putin’s idea of democracy means that those who disagree with the government are neither heard nor seen.
Emptied streets cannot hide the fact that Putin’s new term has not been welcomed, particularly in major urban hubs like Moscow. The prospect of Putin resuming the office that he never really surrendered has proved a galvanizing force in Russia over the past year, awaking a previously dormant middle class, and sparking the largest street protests in Russia since the dying days of the Soviet Union. Not powerful enough to prevent Putin’s reelection – largely a formality in Russia’s fraud-plagued elections – the protests have revealed what the state-run media has long managed to suppress: widespread distrust of the political system and popular contempt for Putin.
Putin’s landslide “victory” in March took some steam out of the protest movement but it is unlikely to disappear altogether. The reason has to do with the emergence of a new force in Russian politics, a politically engaged, young, urban middle class that is not content to stand by passively while Putin destroys the country’s governing institutions. Mobilized by online social media like Twitter and blogs, this new generation of activists has been extraordinarily successful in exposing government corruption, most notably the massive vote rigging in what passes for Russian elections. While it remains to be seen whether they can sustain the record number of protestors that poured into the streets of Russian capitals this winter, they are clearly intent on challenging the government going forward.
Putin’s answer to the protestors, aside from police harassment and periodic crackdowns, has been to claim that they are not representative of broader society, which remains supportive of him. There is some truth to that, but the support that Putin does enjoy is precarious and conditional. In the past, Putin has relied on steady economic growth and lavish social spending to keep his base of provincial and working-class voters happy. The problem is that it was a social compact bought with oil revenue, which has declined in recent years. When Putin first took power in 2000, high oil prices allowed the government to bankroll its spending programs and balance the budget. Spending has increased since then and Russian analysts say that oil will have to stay above $117 per barrel if Russia is to avoid a budget deficit. With oil currently trading at $120 per barrel, the government is living dangerously.
