RUTHFULLY YOURS

FIRST: When the Arabs, namely, Jordan, illegally occupied and controlled East Jerusalem, the city was a dump. Shrines, churches, cemeteries, homes, parks and schools were vandalized and trashed. The kinglet of Jordan, Abdullah, told President Trump that moving the United States embassy to Jerusalem would” pre-empt a comprehensive solution that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. He also emphasized that Jerusalem is the key to achieving peace and stability in the region. How ironic. The kinglet and his family are protected night and day by Israeli intel, and despised by the Palarabs who remember “Black September” the uprising in 1970 when his smarter and pluckier father killed and deported several thousand PLO upstarts. He would be the second to fall if there were a Palarab sovereignty in the “West Bank.”

SECOND: Israel has scrupulously restored the ancient city with respect and protection of the churches, synagogues,parks, monuments, cemeteries and shrines of all faiths with guarantees of the safety of worshipers from all over the earth.

THIRD: Every single so called “peace process” obtained Israeli concessions in exchange for promises that were flouted before the ink was dry on the agreements. The Oslo accords were followed by the most savage and prolonged series of terrorism that claimed the lives of innocents…. babies in their cribs, teens on hikes, diners in cafes and pizzerias, shoppers in markets, revelers at a Passover dinner….the list is endless and these attacks took place within the cities in Israel that are not the falsely disputed “West Bank.” The Palarab schools, press, and sermons continue to preach unrelenting anti-Semitism, and reward barbarism financially and with monuments and streets hailing them.

So now we have a President who, unlike his pantywaist predecessors, is fulfilling a promise and all the hand-wringers and concession processors are in a snit. How predictable. rsk

There is no question that some men – not all, but some – feel that money, fame and power give them the right to have whatever they want, including women. Libidos, fed by arrogance, displace decency and respect. Many of these men are vocal in their defense of feminist rights, but disrespectful toward women as individuals. But there are some women – not many, but a few – to whom money, fame and power serve as aphrodisiacs. “Power,” Henry Kissinger once observed, “is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” And so it is, to a few.

While serial harassers of women, like bullies everywhere, should be dealt with severely, we live in a country where due process is law and accused are considered innocent until proven guilty. There is risk when the media are more interested in ratings and political advocacy than truth. Accusations without proof are the stuff from which revolutions are wrought. Angelo Codevilla, a professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and a man who spent eight years on the Senate staff observed the play between politicians and staff: access to power was on one side and the offer of sex on the other. “Innocence, he wrote, was the one quality entirely absent on all sides.” That may be true, but the sides are not equally paired; leverage lies with those who wield power.

Nevertheless, we must not let disclosures of dalliances turn into witch hunts, McCarthyism, or, God forbid, Puritanism. Interestingly, the majority of those charged have been men of the Left who have visibly and vocally supported feminism and women’s rights, all the while treating female subordinates as sex objects. While many of us conservatives have derived a sense of schadenfreude watching deviant hypocrites like Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor and Charlie Rose being hoisted on petards of their own making, there should also be an acknowledgement of “there but for the grace of God go I…” In some cases, accusations go back decades, providing little opportunity for rebuttal. It is one person’s word against another’s. Stones are cast, with little attention paid to those doing the tossing.

Sessions won’t take sides on GOP demands for Clinton probe. Trump allies have been clamoring for a new investigation of a 2010 deal that transferred some U.S. uranium production capacity to a company with Kremlin links.
Sessions said appointing a separate special counsel to investigate Clinton would require “a factual basis”.
In a heated exchange with Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio who asked what it would take to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations against Clinton, Sessions said: “We will use the proper standards, and that’s the only thing I can tell you.
“You can have your idea, but sometimes we have to study what the facts are, and to evaluate whether it meets the standards it requires.”
A fiery Jordan continued to allege misconduct by Clinton. Citing additional reports that her campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the Fusion GPS dossier into Trump’s ties to Russia, Jordan maintained it “looks like” there was enough evidence to warrant naming a second special counsel.
Sessions tersely responded: “I would say ‘looks like’ is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel.”
Sessions later sought to clarify his comments, stating: “I did not mean to suggest I was taking a side one way or the other on that subject.”

In a burst of bogus feminism and commercial ambition, Mattel Inc., the global doll-maker, has announced that in 2018 it will market a Barbie doll wearing a hijab. Barbie dolls rarely impinge on political and social issues but this one is so unsettling that it evokes a wide range of responses.

We have to understand that Mattel likes to believe Barbie dolls positively influence the feelings of girls and help to point them toward the possibilities of adult life. That’s a self-justifying idea that runs through the company’s bloodstream. It suggests that Mattel serves a social purpose while selling its products.

After all, Barbies aren’t just princesses and wonder women. You can buy Barbies wearing practical clothing for offices, “chic summer suits” and camel-hair coats. This is Mattel’s bow to feminists who believe little girls should be discouraged from dwelling on fantasies of the future: they should learn, as soon as possible, the truth about what they are likely to become.

For girls with higher aspirations, you can get Barbies clothed in a cocktail dress, a classic black dress, or an Oscar de la Renta ball gown. One Barbie has a Hudson’s Bay jacket and another displays an Andy Warhol painting on the front of her dress.

Attached to the news about the hijab Barbie is a line from Mattel about “Continuing to inspire girls to be anything.” Girls are to become whatever their desires and talents can make them. Elsewhere, such as in admiring quotations from Glamour magazine in the Mattel publicity, the same idea appears.

The SPLC is Antifa without hoods, masks, or bicycle locks. It has issued its own fatwas on any one or any organization it has subjectively deemed “hateful,’ that is, its primary target is to scuttle freedom of speech and to silence anyone’s freedom of speech, especially about Islam.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a kind of honorary member of the “Swamp,” and of the “Deep State.” Its board of directors is comprised of Progressivebobbleheads. While it purports to identify “hate speech” (see my recent column, “A Lexicon for Our Time,” for a discussion of the invalidity of the term hate speech) and “hate groups,” it is itself a promulgator of the former thus making it automatically a member of the latter.

“Hate speech is free speech that hurts people’s feelings.”Pat Condell agrees and describes what’s happening in Britain, which is the government’s totalitarian yen for Sharia. “Hate crime” depends on a subjective perception of what is said or written or done. It could be anything from a virulent defamation of Islam on a soapbox or the Internet, to the twirly shape of the top of a Burger King ice cream cone. If the twirl is “offensive” and resembles an Islamic symbol, you’re guilty of “hate speech” and, depending on a prosecutor’s fervor, you will be charged with a “hate crime.” Evidence of “hate speech” or a “hate crime” depends solely on someone’s “feelings” or claim of hurt feelings.

The SPLC has all the credibility of Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, whose mandate is to remove Donald Trump from office by hook, crook, or impeachment. His purpose is to find prosecutable dirt on Trump. However, he is sweeping madly for Russian dust bunnies in a spotless hospital operating room.

The SPLC is Antifa without hoods, masks, or bicycle locks. It has issued its own fatwas on any one or any organization it has subjectively deemed “hateful,” that is, its primary target is to scuttle freedom of speech and to silence anyone’s freedom of speech, especially about Islam. It commits slander, libel, or smears in conjunction with a willing and copasetic Mainstream Media (MSM), which is lured by its often ludicrous designations to fresh meat like a “Walker” or zombie in The Walking Dead. (Walker: “The reanimated corpse of a human being that has regained limited function and mobility, as well as developed an insatiable hunger for flesh.” An apt description which fits the MSM, as well! Walkers, or the MSM, have demonstrated a hunger for humans, pigs, dogs, horses, and even tigers. Tigresses like Pamela Geller, who, though surrounded by the baying and growling MSM, will not be brought down. Read FATWA, and learn why not.)

The MSM has confirmed by consensus and by a kneejerk reference to the discredited SPLC that Geller, together with everyone else on its “anti-Muslim hit list is “anti-Muslim,” even though she has said numerous times that she is not “anti-Muslim.”

Like Frankenstein’s monster, the SPLC has become a malevolent agent for “change” and social
“transformation.”

First:I think rapists and pedophiles should get the Lorena Bobbit surgery. I think physical force with threats of job loss is criminal. I think sexual innuendo and harassment is vulgar and discrediting. So is deliberate and targeted seduction by women vulgar and discrediting.

Last week Carly Fiorina spoke to Chris Wallace about the recent sex-scandals taking down celebrities, media personalities and legislators….all falling like dominoes. She described a vulgar suggestion many years ago that she use sex in order to get a contract. Her reaction then was to run out to her car and cry.

But the weeping gets to me. Fiorina wanted to be the leader of the free world? Would she run to her limo and cry if some banana dictator made a sexual suggestion threatening to withhold a treaty if she did not succumb to sex?

I would vote tomorrow for a woman who slapped or told off a sexual predator employer. Rep. Martha McSally a Republican in District 2 of Arizona is a retired United States Colonel and pilot. This is what she wrote about American female soldiers forced to wear headscarves in Moslem nations.

“To me, the abaya directive, with its different rules for male and female troops and the requirement that I don the garb of a faith not my own, violated the the U.S. constitutional values I pledged to defend and degraded military order and cohesion.”

“Our male and female troops are risking their lives every day in Afghanistan while proudly representing and defending the United States. They are there to disrupt and defeat al-Qaeda while assisting Afghans in securing their future from extremist oppression. With our Afghan partners, trust can be built on a foundation of mutual respect, where no one is expected to submit to others’ cultural and religious guidelines.”

I bet she wouldn’t cry. rsk

November is a month for memories. We think of the Pilgrims who celebrated their first year in the New World, in 1621 – and try to make sense of the hardships they endured, all for the cause of freedom to worship as they chose. We give thanks they succeeded. On the 11th of November, we remember the 18 million soldiers and civilians who died in World War I – a day commemorated as Armistice, Poppy, Remembrance and Veterans Day. Sadly, it was a war that did not “end all wars,” but served as prelude to a bigger conflict. But, in the end, freedom prevailed. On November 22nd, 1963 at 12:30PM President John F. Kennedy was assassinated – catapulting the nation into a struggle to understand, why? For us who were young and free, it was as though we also had been struck down. And, that most iconic of American films, Casablanca, premiered in New York City on November 26, 1942 – Thanksgiving Day. It was a movie with relevance today – a story of refugees trapped by events beyond their control, with a majority of the actors and actresses, either foreign born or refugees themselves – all seeking freedom.

The beacon of freedom, more than anything else, defines the world’s conflicts. That was so this month. Some who live in democracies are unappreciative of freedom’s rarity and fragility; for others, it is a distant siren, a promise. Islamic extremists, who despise the concept of freedom – individual, religious, political and economic – were relentless during the month. According to Wikipedia, more than 600 died at Islamists’ hands. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan now living in New York, drove a truck down a bike lane in lower Manhattan, killing eight cyclists. Before being caught, he shouted Allahu Akbar! God is the greatest! He had left a note pledging allegiance to ISIS. In a mosque on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, ISIS gunmen murdered 305 Sufi Muslims, a sect they consider heretical. On the Korean Peninsula, a North Korean soldier, identified only by his surname, Oh, escaped to the South, carrying with him five bullet wounds from North Korean soldiers, who shot him as he slipped across the border. What motivated Oh? Perhaps he had heard President Trump speak in Seoul of the “dazzling light” of South Korea versus the “impenetrable darkness” of the North – “the glories of freedom versus the toll of tyranny.”

Freedom, or the lack thereof, was at the center of the decision to elevate Xi Jinping last month. It is the crux of the debate between Brussels and London over Brexit – between the vision of Europe articulated by Margaret Thatcher almost forty years ago of a region based on nation-states that cooperate in trade and defense, versus the bureaucratic and liberty-challenged monolith preferred by those like Jean Claude Junker – an unaccountable and under-representative government that serves the needs of bureaucrats, not the wishes of the people – the populous. (Populism has been redefined by European politicians and media, and has assumed a pejorative connotation, to include all those – from nationalists to lovers of liberty – who threaten the comfortable lives led by arrogant elites in Brussels.) In the U.S., freedom lurks behind the debate raging between those who want government to do more, and those who would have it do less – to determine where on the spectrum, between anarchy and tyranny, one would prefer our politics to lie. Freedom is at risk in universities and colleges where conservatives are banned and debate is stifled.

Many years ago an Arab in Jerusalem stabbed an elderly Orthodox Jew whose companions gave chase, captured the assailant and beat him until the police came. Peter Jennings, who was the anchor of ABC News from 1984 until his death in 2005, described it thus: “Today an Orthodox mob chased and beat a Palestinian Arab.” That was artful bias–reporting an incident factually with no exculpatory explanation.

The other networks were no better. NBC reported outright lies during their coverage of the Lebanon War.

In 1984 Americans for a Safe Israel produced a documentary entitled NBC in Lebanon- A Study in Media Misrepresentation. In The New York Times, the television critic John Corry reviewed it as flawed (naturally) but admitted “[I]t attempts to prove, and to a large extent does prove, that coverage by the NBC Nightly News of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982 was faulty.” He continued “One may argue, of course, that journalism ought not to reflect any viewpoint, and that to accuse NBC of not reflecting the ‘Israeli viewpoint’ is only to accuse it of not taking sides. On the other hand, the documentary, judiciously using NBC’s own film, suggests that NBC was indeed taking sides and pressing the viewpoint of the P.L.O.“

Of Tom Brokaw, the “star” of the AFSI documentary, Dan Rather who ‘resigned’ in disgrace from CBS after he orchestrated a false report on the National Guard Service of then President George Bush, and Peter Jennings, journalist Sarah Pentz had this to say: “Each of these men leaves a shameful legacy on the face of American journalism. They led their networks into a shocking wave of politically biased reporting and did absolutely nothing to rebuke those who indulged in it––because, it was their agenda, too. They knew exactly what they were doing. Each is responsible for the blackening tarnish that covers all journalists today because of their partisan politics.”

These biased network journalists paved the way for the clowns who dominate network as well as print media today. At least those three had credentials as journalists, however badly they misused them. The present lot reports on world events, and especially Israel without a clue. They pretend that the history of Israel started in 1967 when Jews, without provocation or legitimate rights, invaded the peaceful and productive lands of the “West Bank.”

Chris Matthews of MSNBC worries that moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem will “desecrate the Holy City”, defends Palestinian Arab terrorism, and worries, worries, worries full time about the perverse Jewish lobby, Jewish Republicans, Jewish influence–and non Jewish Donald Trump. As Stuart Schwartz summed up in the American Thinkerin 2010: “Matthews has long used his television platform to spotlight the danger to the United States posed by Israel and American Jews who conspire against the country. Call it ‘The Protocols of Chris Matthews,’ or, perhaps, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of MSNBC.’ Rid us of Israel, rid us of Jews, and Pandora will return to its pre-kosher bliss.”

In 2014, in a widely circulated column from The Atlantic “What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel – The news tells us less about Israel than about the people writing the news” former AP reporter Matti Friedman writes: “The uglier aspects of Palestinian society are untouchable because they would disrupt the ‘Israel story,’ which is a story of Jewish moral failure.” He includes this pithy 1946 quote from George Orwell: “The argument that to tell the truth would be ‘inopportune’ or would ‘play into the hands of’ somebody or other is felt to be unanswerable, and few people are bothered by the prospect that the lies which they condone will get out of the newspapers and into the history books.”

Media reporting on North Korea, China, Iran, Africa, Russia, and anything about the President and domestic policies is devoid of historical context and alternative perspectives. It is “one size fits all” liberal cant.

Celebrities routinely host galas to reward themselves: Emmies, Golden Globes, Oscars. Journalists have their own awards for distinction in reporting–the Peabody, the Pulitzer, the Edward R. Murrow. I would recommend the Apate award for all those who compound ignorance and bias into fake news. In Greek mythology Apate was the goddess of deception, guile and fraud. The statuette could have a Pinocchio nose, although the Disney legend was limited to thirteen lies, and reporters have no limits.

Many articles have been written about the growing trend of adult children choosing estrangement in American families. The recent Thanksgiving holiday has highlighted this alarming movement toward the dissolution of family bonds of love and loyalty. What is the source of this dreadful shift? What happened to honor thy father and mother?

Sheri McGregor, M.A. has written an important book titled Done With The Crying that explores the disturbing increase in families with adult children who disown their parents. There are, of course, appropriate conditions for estrangement but the current trend appears baffling to the 9,000 confused and grieving parents surveyed who cannot fathom why the children they have loved for a lifetime are choosing to reject them. Done With The Crying attempts to help devastated parents accept their loss and move on with their lives. McGregor is asking “What now?” I am asking “Why now?”

Generation gaps between parents and their adult children have traditionally been resolved with courtesy, respect, and a sense of humor. Adult children honored their parents even when they disagreed with them and chose a different path for their own lives. A fundamental level of gratitude for the parent’s efforts and dedication allowed the differences to be minimized and the family bonds maximized. What has changed??

The bewildered parents McGregor describes cannot accept the estrangement because they simply do not understand it. She describes the staggering lack of respect, restraint, gratitude, and overarching sense of entitlement in adult children’s demand for parental conformity including restricting their parents’ freedom of speech. In the upside-down world of self-seeking millennials the parent/child role has been reversed. Parents are expected to conform to their adult child’s new norms. If the parent refuses the adult child withdraws himself to a “safe space” seeking protection from the “toxic” ideas of his parents. Toxicity, like hate speech, has been redefined as anything the adult child opposes.

My essay last week on the worrying elision of the criminal and the minimal in the current wave of sexual-assault allegations seems to have stirred some colleagues. So at the risk of being accused of never taking “no” for an answer, let me jump straight back on in. For as Jonah Goldberg mentioned in his recent column, this whole realm is in flux, and debate is going to be needed if this panic is going to be resolved in a sensible manner.

In a column yesterday, Christina Hoff Sommers brilliantly dissected as well as lampooned some recent heights of the present frenzy, such as Farhad Manjoo at the New York Times who recently asked: “I seriously, sincerely wonder how all women don’t regard all men as monsters to be constantly feared.”

To which Sommers rightly responded by asking: “Does Manjoo include himself? Are his female colleagues at the Times suddenly in constant fear of him?”

Of course not. Manjoo is simply engaging in male posturing of the most prostrate and supplicant variety. If we are going to get beyond such posturing, it will also be necessary to have a discussion that is capable of raising inconvenient, even unpleasant, facets of this whole business.

To that end, there is still one aspect of all this that seems cordoned off. That is the whole issue of “power”: Who has it, who gives it, and who wields it. Given that it is almost impossible for a man to write about a woman’s experience in this area without being flayed alive, let me relay the story of somebody I once met some years ago.

The man was an acquaintance of a friend, was fairly attractive, and as such had decided to become an actor. Since acting is not, alas, an art in which talent will always out, a degree of networking is usually necessary for someone to succeed. Though heterosexual himself, this young man had come within the circle of an actor who was known to be gay. And since acting, like sport, is one of the few areas left where being gay is still thought to be a vast career drawback, the celebrated actor had kept the whole gay thing an open-ish secret.

Anyhow — the straight, aspiring actor mentioned in passing that he had been out on a couple of dates with this actor, though added that things had ended cooly. The cause was that a couple of dates in, the aspirant actor guessed that it might be time to drop into the conversation the fact that he happened to have a girlfriend. I recall that he explained the need to make this admission with a certain regret, for relations with the gay actor had, understandably, wound down after that. The older actor had not been back in touch, and the younger actor seemed slightly resentful that he had spoilt what could have been an ongoing bit of career-furthering by not continuing to play along with the whole gay-date thing.