RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303456104579489813562362816?mod=Opinion_newsreel_5

The political left favors “single payer” health care, but that concept has new meaning in New Hampshire this year as just one insurer was willing to participate in ObamaCare. Thus the spectacle of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen beseeching the feds to save her re-election from her own law.

The Granite State Senator rode the 2008 Obama wave to become the deciding 60th vote for the law’s passage, but now Ms. Shaheen must defend the mess it has made of her state’s insurance markets. She’s cashing in all her government chits amid a statewide uproar as patient access to hospitals and other providers has declined.
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Editorial board member Joe Rago on the skyrocketing health care premiums and limited doctor network under the new health-care law. Photo credit: Getty Images/Associated Press.

The only exchange option afforded to consumers comes from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a unit of WellPoint. The insurer built a narrow network that lowered premiums by 25% or 30% while still complying with ObamaCare’s other mandates. Limiting choice can generate volume discounts on rates and sometimes better medical performance.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304512504579493410287663906?mg=reno64-wsj

Ms Hirsi Ali states: “The motto of Brandeis University is “Truth even unto its innermost parts.” That is my motto too. For it is only through truth, unsparing truth, that your generation can hope to do better than mine in the struggle for peace, freedom and equality of the sexes.”….that “truth in its innermost parts” must include the fact that it is doctrinal Islam that oppresses, subjugates all people….women, men and children….that tolerates female genital mutilation and massacres of Christians….Only that truth will unveil the possibility of reformation of Islam…..rsk

We need to make our universities temples not of dogmatic orthodoxy, but of truly critical thinking.

On Tuesday, after protests by students, faculty and outside groups, Brandeis University revoked its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree at its commencement ceremonies in May. The protesters accused Ms. Hirsi Ali, an advocate for the rights of women and girls, of being “Islamophobic.” Here is an abridged version of the remarks she planned to deliver.

One year ago, the city and suburbs of Boston were still in mourning. Families who only weeks earlier had children and siblings to hug were left with only photographs and memories. Still others were hovering over bedsides, watching as young men, women, and children endured painful surgeries and permanent disfiguration. All because two brothers, radicalized by jihadist websites, decided to place homemade bombs in backpacks near the finish line of one of the most prominent events in American sports, the Boston Marathon.

http://politicalmavens.com/

American college girls consider themselves harassed when a life-sized sculpture of a man in his underwear is placed on their campus.

So imagine how they must react to the story of a young girl from a patriarchal religious culture who is subjected to genital cutting, a planned arranged marriage with an older man, exile from her native land, the need to learn another language, her election to parliament in her adopted country, her determination to expose the fundamental abuse in a religious culture that treats women as the chattel of their fathers and husbands, her collaboration with a filmmaker to illuminate these issues, her trauma as the director is stabbed through the heart in the middle of a European city in broad daylight with a note attached to the dagger proclaiming the triumph of that religion and the subsequent threat to her of the same fate. American college girls, along with all other sane Americans would of course be overwhelmed by the bravery of this woman in speaking out despite her rational fear of murderous repercussions.

Unless, of course, the brainwash of political correctness insisting that a religion supporting such subjugation of women, not to mention the penalty of death for homosexuality, must command respect for values that are inimically opposed to our own constitutional laws. How shocking that only 13 years after 9/11, after the massacres at Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon, we are more intimidated by the word Islamophobia than protective of our own traditions of free speech and equal rights for all. How shameful that seemingly enlightened professors and students can bond with the culture of oppressors instead of with their courageous victims, one of whom overcame all obstacles to become a leading scholar, writer and award-winning activist.

The students and faculty of Brandeis who pressured a pusillanimous president to rescind the honorarium originally extended to Ayaan Hirsi Ali deserve the opprobrium of all decent people. Americans who claim to believe in equality for women and gays should voice their protest at this inversion of our principles. To be opposed to the subjugation of women through mutilation, intimidation, exploitation and punishment by death is not Islamophobic. In fact, it is the mandate of every western country. To give in to the pressure of CAIR and other Muslim groups and not champion the hero who highlights the perfidy of discrimination and subjugation is to deny our American heritage and be traitors to our own civilization.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14815#.U0ctGyhy_Hg

Be mindful that “Jews who make trouble,” like Moses and Herzl, are an inconvenience to Zionists stricken by PC, political correctness.

Take this as another rule; that if PBS or CNN or the BBC and the rest of them offer you yet another History of the Jews, expect this – the worst.

Reluctantly, I sat through parts 2 and 3 of Simon Schama’s “The Story of the Jews” so you wouldn’t have to. This was a PBS extravaganza.

Schama is a well-known British/Jewish historian. He is also, in his own words, a “Zionist.” Not in my book. His Zionism is limited to Jews who behave.

More on “Jews who make trouble” came only yesterday from John Kerry who alleged before Congress that Israel was to blame for the breakdown in peace talks and that the conflict was “first and foremost among all the world’s leaders.” Really? How about nuclear-armed Russia on the move again, and 150,000-plus murdered in Syria –Arab against Arab?

Your obsession with Israel, Mr. Secretary…this is known as hysterical blindness.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2802/Enforcing-Islamic-Law-at-Brandeis.aspx

When Brandeis University withdrew an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali after a student-professor firestorm branded her an “Islamophobe,” the campus in effect declared itself an outpost of Islamic law, American-style. Officially, Brandeis is now a place where critics of Islam – “blasphemers” and “apostates,” according to Islamic law – are scorned and rejected.

Not that Brandeis put it that way in its unsigned announcement about Hirsi Ali’s dis-invitation, which notes: “She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook … her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”

Translation: Hirsi Ali’s advocacy on behalf of brutalized women is Good, but Hirsi Ali’s “past statements” – advocacy that connects such violence to Islamic teachings – are Bad, or, in faddish twaddle, “Islamophobia.” As a dhimmi (non-Muslims under Islamic law) institution, Brandeis cannot possibly honor the infidel.

Islamic blasphemy laws sanction the death penalty for exactly the kind of criticism of Islam ex-Muslim Hirsi Ali has engaged in: hence, the innumerable death threats she has received for over a decade; and hence, the ritual Islamic slaughter of Hirsi Ali’s co-producer, Theo van Gogh, for “Submission,” their short film about specifically Islamic violence and repression of women. In the U.S. (so far), punishment for such “transgressions” against Islam usually resembles an aggressive form of blackballing. There are horrifying exceptions, however, including the decision to prosecute and incarcerate Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, producer of “Innocence of Muslims,” for “parole violations.” To be sure, when it comes to participating in the 21st-century public square – in this case, donning academic robes and making valedictory remarks – “Islamophobes” need not apply.

http://sarahhonig.com/2014/04/11/another-tack-st-edwards-and-the-empty-peace/

No devotee of Yes Minister, yesteryear’s BBC’s classic, can forget St. Edward’s Hospital – that spanking new cutting edge facility that had no patients or medical personnel. Nonetheless, St. Edward’s hustled and bustled, a veritable hive of activity and creative energy. For 15-months since its much-ballyhooed inauguration, an administrative staff of 500 bureaucrats filled the hospital’s offices, pushed papers and generated red tape.

Sounds exaggerated? A bit over-the-top for real life? Not really. John Kerry’s peace project, for example, replicates the parody’s blueprints with mind-blowing precision. It is for diplomacy what St. Edward’s was for health care – an incredible lot of much-ado about absolutely nothing.

The biggest snag in Kerry’s persistent peace offensive is that it lacks the commonsense basic essentials to even begin to achieve what it was promoted to do. It couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. St Edward’s couldn’t heal the sick because none had been admitted. No doctors or nurses were on hand either. It was a hospital in name only.

Kerry’s peace process is a process in name only. It featured no negotiations between seekers of peace. Indeed there was no one who wanted what Kerry tried to ram through, just as no one got treatment at the hospital with no patients. Kerry and his crew engaged in frenetic shuttles just as the hospital’s ancillary staffers busied themselves self-importantly.

In both cases no good came of it and no good could come of it. The prodigious hum and buzz benefited no one. There was no reality behind the façade.

Kerry’s peacemaking affectation depended on there being actual peacemakers. But the last thing any Palestinian honcho could afford was to strike any sort of a deal. If Arafat couldn’t do it at Camp David back in 2000 (despite Ehud Barak’s unprecedented concessions), surely Mahmoud Abbas couldn’t do it now. Abbas’s last-minute dodge is no different from Arafat’s hasty skedaddle from the talks that America’s then-President Bill Clinton fervently fostered.

Like Arafat, who was immeasurably more powerful, Abbas doesn’t want to end the conflict and be saddled with a puny Palestinian state. His aim is to discredit, delegitimize, destabilize and eventually destroy the Jewish state (which he significantly refuses to recognize).

That’s why he disdainfully rebuffed Ehud Olmert’s egregious largesse at Annapolis in 2007. No Israeli concession – no matter how generous – can ever be good enough when compromise isn’t the real Palestinian endgame but the barely disguised means to achieve the reverse of insincere pledges.

The in-your-face extortion practiced by Abbas didn’t simply attest to an insatiable appetite. It was an effort to stymie Kerry’s entire undertaking, to put up obstacles so outrageous that no one could possibly surmount them. To Abbas’s shock and dismay, however, his Israeli interlocutors proved to be softer soft-touches than he conceivably imagined.

Abbas could never have anticipated that Kerry would so stanchly side with the Palestinian Authority and essentially function as its accomplice in squeezing and duping Israel. The American Secretary of State repeatedly threatened Israel with petrifying BDS (Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions) punishment. He also offered one shriveled carrot – belatedly freeing Jonathan Pollard, who’s anyway soon up for parole and who by any criteria should have been liberated long ago.

The idea of exchanging Pollard for sadistic mass-murders isn’t just morally repugnant. It also substantiates suspicion that Pollard is kept behind bars as a bargaining chip. Erstwhile American Special Envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, owned up that he had recommended using Pollard as a quasi-hostage to be held for ransom. Simple justice was evidently out of the equation in this case.

In his 2004 book The Missing Peace, Ross quotes himself as telling Clinton at the 1998 Wye Summit (p.438) that “I was in favor of his [Pollard’s] release, believing that he had received a harsher sentence than others who had committed comparable crimes. I preferred not tying his release to any agreement, but if that was what we were going to do, then I favored saving it for permanent status.”

Get it? Pollard, as an asset of statecraft, should not be squandered on any interim arrangement but reserved for the bigger barter transaction – official Washington’s variation on the human-trafficking theme.

Clearly, then, the notion of trading Pollard isn’t new. This leads us, on the eve of Passover to ponder one more Seder-like “how-is-this-different” question. How is this recent Pollard sweetener different from the sweetener dangled under Netanyahu’s nose 16 years ago?

Really now…why the high dudgeon at Brandeis now? I would think that the courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali should be honored at being disinvited by the radical campus that passes for a “liberal arts” university in Waltham , Massachusetts. Why just this past November 2013 Brandeis professors called on university to ‘resume, redouble’ ties with Al-Quds […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/americas-suicide-pact-with-communism?f=puball

It was a Founder and our second President, John Adams, who said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

He was right and I am sure he would be appalled to know that the Constitution has since been interpreted to permit the murder of the unborn or that the ancient definition of marriage has been trashed to permit people of the same sex to “marry.” The legalization and use of marijuana is a further sign of decline.

These and other elements of the values expressed and expected by the Founders are eating away at the present and future of the United States of America. The Supreme Court was created to rule on what the Constitution’s actual words say and mean, not on the passing aspirations of generations who have abandoned the fundamental principles of the remarkable government it created.

The Constitution represents a federal government that was granted limited powers. The rest were retained by the States, but Communism and Socialism are based on a strong central government, one ruled by an elite class of intellectuals to oversee all elements of the economy and to set the rules by which everyone must live even if they conflict with their religious convictions and moral values.

The degradation of the nation has tracked the rise of Socialism, begun with Karl Marx’s creation of Communism. Born in Prussia in 1818, Marx was influenced by the writings of Hegel, a German philosopher. Marx’s socialist writings would get him expelled from Germany and France. In 1848, with Friedrich Engels, he published The Communist Manifesto and was exiled to London where he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital, living there until his death in 1883. Suffice to say that the Communism he unleashed would cause the death of hundreds of millions, particularly in Russia and China where it was embraced.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4258/uk-jihadists-charity-workers

The full truth is a bit more chilling, Sharif and his wife are supporters of ISIS, the leading Al-Qaeda-aligned group in Syria. Al Jazeera reports that in areas under ISIS control, “men [have]… been beheaded, their heads mounted on spikes. Children…slaughtered.” Other posts found on the couple’s Facebook pages include videos glorifying jihadi fighters; praise for late Al Qaeda leaders such as Abdullah Azzam and Anwar Al-Awlaki; and calls for an Islamic state.

The British media continues to label British Islamist volunteers who support jihadist movements in Syria as “charity workers.”

In December, the BBC aired a documentary about aid convoys to Syria, but – as reported by Gatestone Institute – neglected to inform viewers of the convoy volunteers’ support for jihadi “martyrs,” Al Qaeda operatives and extremist preachers.

Although the UK Charity Commission subsequently started an investigation into these charities, the failure of the media to research their interviewees continues to impair efforts to tackle the abuse of British taxpayers’ charitable initiatives.

On April 1, Britain’s Channel 4 aired an interview with two “charity workers” in Syria – Tauqir Sharif and his wife, Racquell Hayden-Best. Sharif and his wife work with a number of different charities involved with “aid convoys” to Syria, including One Nation, which is also presently funding a Hamas-run charity in Gaza.

Channel 4 did provide a little bit of background, noting that Sharif has:

…a long history of activism – he was one of those aboard the Gaza aid flotilla which was raided by Israeli forces in 2010. He has campaigned to raise awareness about Syria and met the former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg when Mr Begg visited Syria last year. They were due to speak at a live online “webinar” event about the conflict, but it was cancelled after Mr Begg was arrested and charged with Syria-related offences.

The full truth is a bit more chilling: Sharif and his wife are supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the leading Al Qaeda-aligned group in Syria. ISIS evolved from a group called Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was known for “its butchery and oppression, which included killing Sunni and Shiite civilians with spectacular suicide attacks, bombing Shiite mosques, uploading videos of beheadings on jihadist forums, and forcing local Sunnis to abide by its interpretation of Islamic law.”

ISIS is at least as violent as its predecessor. Al Jazeera reports that in areas under ISIS control, “men [have]…been beheaded, their heads mounted on spikes. Children…slaughtered.”

Unlike its predecessor, however, ISIS has supplemented its violence with dawa’h programs – a system of social provision, or “soft-power outreach” – in areas under its control. A key component of this dawa’h, the Hudson Institute reports, is providing educational outreach initiatives “as part of its wider strategy to foster a new generation of Syrians in support of its ideological agenda. … ISIS runs a number of schools in areas where it has consolidated its presence… [and] offers other services to complement their educational outreach, such as their school-bus services in the Aleppo town of al-Bab.”

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4256/iran-europe-nuclear-dual-use

The illegal transfer of dual-use equipment to Iran continues unabated, due to lax enforcement and the failure of European governments to keep pace with the growing number and sophistication of actors involved in security-related trade with Tehran.

“Iran continues to seek items for its prohibited activities from abroad by using multiple and increasingly complex procurement methods, including front companies, intermediaries, false documentation and new routes.” — Confidential U.N. Panel of Experts

Spanish police have arrested four individuals suspected of attempting to export to Iran industrial machinery that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction.

The machinery involves so-called dual-use equipment—products and technologies that can be used for both civilian and military applications.

Although the European Union bans the export to Iran of certain dual-use machinery and technology that could be used to aid Iran’s military program, loopholes abound and enforcement remains patchy.