RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5375/labour_has_lost_me_as_it_has_lost_the_plot_over_israel
OH PULEEZ WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? YOU SOUND LIKE ALL THOSE BUYER’S REGRET JEWS WHO VOTED FOR OBAMA….RSK

Labour has lost me, as it has lost the plot over Israel

Actress Maureen Lipman has been a life-long Labour supporter. But the party’s breathtaking hypocrisy and generally shameful behaviour regarding Israel means she won’t be voting Labour at the 2015 elections

For the first time in five decades, I shall not be voting Labour. I have always been a socialist and I believe in the principles of socialism. I have stood on the hustings beside Neil Kinnock and canvassed for my Aunt Rita in her constituency in Hull. I was, somewhat blurrily, a Blair luvvie and I used my dislike of Mrs Thatcher to fuel some deadly impersonations of her.

My late husband, Jack Rosenthal, canvassed for Sydney Silverman in the 1945 General Election. “In them days,” said the father in his seminal television play Bar Mitzvah Boy, “they handed you your Labour Party membership just after your circumcision. They gave with one hand and took away with the other.”

I still believe that, until the Iraq debacle, Tony Blair did great work to restore the party’s fortunes. I still thumb through Tony Benn’s diaries with a fond smile and I am Alan Johnson’s number one fan as a politician, a writer and a humane human being. I have all the time in the world for Margaret Beckett and still admire Frank Field.

I rather liked David Miliband and have a sneaking suspicion he may return strengthened by his time out in the real world. But this lot? The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? I can’t, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/the_pigheaded_bds_movement.html
The incident that got BDS banned from demonstrating at Woolworths stores in South Africa was when members of a political party in support of BDS trespassed into one of the stores and placed pigs heads in what they thought was the kosher foods section.

What kosher food has to do with a cynical anti-Israel provocation was clear to everyone. Kosher means Jewish. Jewish means Israel. BDS is anti-Semitic.

BDS in South Africa has a number of Muslims among its hierarchy. They recruit support from thousands of Muslims there that despise the Jewish State of Israel, which they view as an abomination against the Islamic will.

It was against this backdrop that the porky protest flopped — badly.

The ignorant demonstrators thought they had placed the pig’s heads in the kosher section. They photographed themselves holding the heads in triumph, grinningly exposing themselves to publicity. But they had made a huge mistake. Instead of being in the kosher food section they were in the halal section, where they had unkoshered the Muslim food shelves with pigs.

The Muslim community had broadly supported this act only to be horrified to learn that their food supply had been defiled.

Ah well. That’s what you get when you are pigheaded.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/gruber_thinks_youre_stupid_zeke_wishes_for_death____they_wrote_obamacare.html

Consider two immensely influential individuals in healthcare. Dr. Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist, and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist, NIH ethicist, Penn Professor, and brother of Rahm. Their common link, both were key architects of the widely unpopular Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The concern we should all share, within the last two months certain admissions by these healthcare heavyweights about ObamaCare surfaced that should make even the most ardent ObamaCare supporter stop and ponder.

The Gruber tapes have been all over the news. The American voter is stupid, the taxation was “hidden,” and transparency was absent in the process leading up to the vote on the law. Gruber has expressed these troublesome sentiments in various forums, including in front of a camera. The gist of it all, Gruber knows more about what is best for us Americans when it comes to healthcare than we do. It appears that this supremacy complex seemingly justified the deception of the people and the morass of text in the massive bill that worked to hide the truth about the real intent of the law, considering Gruber’s reasoning. But what more is hidden, besides the taxes? That leads us to Zeke’s viewpoints.

“Why I Hope to Die at 75,” is the title of Dr. Emanuel’s manifesto published last month by The Atlantic. In the essay, Zeke tells us why he plans to pursue no care whatsoever once he reaches age 75, not so much as a flu shot. And while Zeke’s words convey his personal wishes as to his own care, one cannot help but wonder, allegorically, if this influential physician feels that he, too, knows better than us when it comes to our healthcare, just as Gruber does. Even more frightening, Dr. Emanuel doesn’t consider the health status of the individual at age 75, the quality of that person’s life, of even the company he or she provides to loved ones but, in a stoic and scientific manner, Emanuel cites the average age of significant accomplishments of Nobel laureates (for physicists, age 48 at the time of discovery) and gauges a human being’s worth by their level of productivity. Wow! Zeke helped write the law, Zeke gauges human worth by productivity and not familial ties or quality of life, and himself a highly accomplished individual in academia (just like Gruber) Zeke sets the bar pretty high by citing the age of Nobel prize winners as a measuring stick of the age of peak human productivity as he correlates it to the collective worth, and worthiness, of the person.

http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/my-year-of-living-israelly/the-foul-stench-of-the-ferguson-fallout/2014/11/26/0/

How can the response to racism simply be to condone racism against a different group?

Although this blog is about my year living in Israel, this entry is focused on what has been going on in Ferguson, Missouri. They are related. They are related because the outrage in Ferguson is allegedly about racist violence. So why is the response…racist violence? And why are people who should know better trying to prove their own bona fides by justifying the racist violent response? Or even any violent response?

It is very much like those who denounce Israel for being an “Apartheid State” insisting that peace will only be achieved by creating a Palestinian State where no Jews can work, live or breathe.

I feel like I am watching the same awful and absurd movie in a different language. What’s worse, most others watching the same movies don’t or won’t recognize either their absurdity or their awfulness.

When I was in law school, back in the mid-to late 1980s, we had a workshop one day entitled “‘Isms’ in the Classroom.”

Yes, we were already (or still? Or maybe just again) into sessions about feelings, even at august U.S. law schools.

The workshops were intended to address different sorts of negative attitudes and how to deal with them, given the disparity in power between the professors and the students, as well as between the majority and the minorities.

The title of one of the workshops I attended: Racism in the Classroom.

I’ve never forgotten something that happened during that workshop. I recall the incident very clearly, almost as if I am watching a close-up scene in a movie, the kind where the camera pans over a large room filled with people, then slowly focuses in on just a few, while every one else goes out of focus.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/pilgrims-and-the-roots-of-the-american-thanksgiving-1417029561?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories English settlers of the 17th century were a diverse lot, and they became Americans despite themselves Dr. Gaskill is professor of early modern history at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, U.K. This essay is adapted from his new book, “Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans,” published this month by Basic […]

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/11/26/iran-celebrates-victory/?print=1 Fifth love letter’s the charm? President Obama’s most recent capitulation in sham “negotiations” over Iran’s nuclear program is his agreement to a seven-month delay in the deadline for a final settlement, which was to have been this past Monday. As the president must know, this delay gives the revolutionary jihadist regime everything it needs: […]

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2014/11/a-jewish-prayer-for-thanksgiving/

In 1940, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York, like many synagogues, held a special service for Thanksgiving. It included traditional Hebrew prayers, the singing of the national anthem, and a speech by the lieutenant governor of the state. The congregation’s rabbi, Joseph Lookstein also composed a special prayer (in English) for the occasion:

We pray sincerely for America and the ideals of democracy and freedom that are here enshrined. May she be strong to withstand all the currents that assail her and all the forces of evil that would invade her sacred precincts. A tower of light to her own citizenry, may she cast a steady beam and light up all the dark areas of the world and show to a perplexed and straying humanity the path of freedom, of life, and of peace.

Amen! Happy thanksgiving to all!

rsk

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

The waiting is over. It is hard to imagine a jury with a more difficult task than that had by the twelve people on the St. Louis County Grand Jury who decided Monday evening not to indict Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown last August. Over twenty-five days, the Grand Jury had heard more than seventy hours of testimony from sixty witnesses. They considered five possible charges, ranging from first degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. They spent two days deliberating the charges. They were not sequestered so were fully aware of the momentous nature of their decision. They had to withstand extraordinary political pressure, both direct and implied. The easy way out would have been to indict and pass on the job of determining guilt or innocence to a trial jury. But they adhered to their responsibility of sifting through all the information and material and decided that there was not enough evidence for a court case to go forward.

Following the announcement of the jury’s decision, President Obama said that the decision of the Grand Jury should be respected, as they are the only ones who have heard and seen all the evidence. He was right. (I just wish he had spoken the same way back in August.) Mr. Obama quoted a letter from Mr. Brown’s father who called for peaceful demonstrations. (Throughout this episode, Mr. Brown senior has been the one adult in the room.) Unfortunately Mr. Obama’s and Mr. Brown’s words were not heeded by those in Ferguson. Riots broke out. Shots were fired. A dozen buildings were burned. Cars were burned and flipped.

It was obvious that the police in Ferguson decided not to protect the property of those whose stores were looted and destroyed, and whose cars were damaged. They attempted to keep some semblance of order, but apparently were more concerned about the backlash from the media and the black community, which may have been wise. But sadly, that property destruction reflects what Matthew Arnold would have called our experimenting with “low culture,” the doing as one likes without regard to one’s community. Disrespect for others characterizes today’s society.

History tells us we should always be fearful of government that uses force unlawfully and capriciously. African-Americans feel targeted, in part because of history, but also because crime and murder are more common to them than others. Facts support their fears. The death rate for blacks in inner cities is ten times that of whites. According to the FBI, there were 12,664 murders in the U.S. in 2011, of which 6,329 were blacks. But 90% of those killings were black on black.

The focus of black leaders should not be on revenge; instead they should ask, why? Why is there so much hatred? How can that energy be redirected toward productive purposes? What can be done to improve schools and provide more and better jobs? What about the social changes in our culture? Have declines in two-parent families and increases in unwed motherhood played roles? (In 1950, 9% of black families with children were headed by a single parent. Today, over 70% of black children are born to unwed mothers.)

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/two-fbi-agents-shot-barricaded-home-near-ferguson-missouri-n256466

Two FBI special agents were shot at a barricaded home just miles from the protest-wracked St. Louis suburb of Ferguson early Wednesday, police said. One was struck in the shoulder and the other in the leg while assisting the University City Police Department in serving an arrest warrant in north St. Louis County, the FBI said in a statement. Their injuries were non-life threatening.

The incident occurred at 2:53 a.m. local time (3:53 a.m. ET). The shooting was “not directly related to the Ferguson protests,” according to the FBI. It was unclear whether it was linked to the shooting of a University City police officer on Monday. Authorities in St. Louis County have been dealing with violent demonstrations protests after a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson over the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/lights-out?f=must_reads

American policy toward Iran, with the failure of the just concluded talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, now centers in large part on two issues. Without Iran coming clean about the dimensions of its nuclear program, we remain uncertain whether Tehran is seeking to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, similar, for example, to what North Korea has accomplished. But if we believe Iran is in fact pursuing a nuclear weapons program, we either (1) work with our allies to end such a program or (2) we decide we will eventually have to live with an Iranian nuclear weapons capability.

That in turn puts on the table a serious question: what is the deal that works to achieve our goal of eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program activity as well as precludes Iran from moving quickly in that direction should it decide to do so? If such a deal is possible, why have not the Iranians grasped it? Versions of it have been repeatedly laid on the table.

Prospects for a deal remain elusive, to say the least. The US has made most of the concessions in the talks with Iran including major ones during this last round of negotiations. What Iran has agreed to are steps that are largely reversible and have not in any significant manner rolled back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, according to top American experts who laid out the landscape in a JINSA Gemunder Center Iran Task Force conference call.

Given the grave implications of concluding Iran has no desire to negotiate a reasonable deal on its nuclear program, many will once again shy away from such obvious implications and again grab hold of the lever of American diplomacy to convince Tehran not to go forward with and negotiate an end to whatever nuclear program they have.

Perhaps it might be useful to examine our own assumptions as to why might Iran be seeking nuclear weapons. Too often we concede that while Iran may indeed have or is pursuing nuclear weapons, they are doing so largely in reaction to a hostile US policy. Others supportive of continued diplomacy–ratcheted up of course as newly as “energetic” or “aggressive”– assert Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon–yet–but if we don’t pursue a diplomatic solution they surely will.