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Dan Rather, Still Wrong After All These Years The movie ‘Truth’ is as bogus as the original attempt to smear George W. Bush’s wartime service.By Dorothy Rabinowitz

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

Combine every speech about the nobility of the journalistic endeavor in every film glorifying reporters intrepidly searching out truth, and you still won’t come close to grasping the level of treacle—there are other words—bubbling up out of “Truth.” Compared with which, “All the President’s Men” (1976)—about the triumphant adventures of Woodward and Bernstein, with Robert Redford portraying Bob Woodward—was a veritable model of shrinking modesty.

Mr. Redford has come a long way since to his latest, namely the role of CBS’s Dan Rather, former network star and anchor of “60 Minutes II,” and the story of how Mr. Rather was ultimately forced out of the company thanks to the scandal in September 2004 after the airing of a segment called “For the Record.”

The creative minds behind “Truth”—based on a book by the CBS report’s producer, Mary Mapes—have wrapped Mr. Rather and Ms. Mapes in a glow of heroic martyrdom so impenetrable there’s hardly a line not put to its service. When, toward the end, all involved in the report face firing, the film’s fatherly Dan Rather asks a young producer what made him want to go into journalism.

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In Defense of Christendom Having ignored its inheritance, Europe wonders why its house is falling apart. Bret Stephens

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

The death of Europe is in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable, but nevertheless visible and drawing nearer—like a distant planet in the lens of an approaching satellite. Europe is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or the dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants. Those desperate people are just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated civilization.

Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent. It isn’t that Europe stands for nothing. It’s that it stands for shallow things, shallowly. Europeans believe in human rights, tolerance, openness, peace, progress, the environment, pleasure. These beliefs are all very nice, but they are also secondary.

What Europeans no longer believe in are the things from which their beliefs spring: Judaism and Christianity; liberalism and the Enlightenment; martial pride and capability; capitalism and wealth. Still less do they believe in fighting or sacrificing or paying or even arguing for these things. Having ignored and undermined their own foundations, they wonder why their house is coming apart.

What is Europe? It is Greece not Persia; Rome not Carthage; Christendom not the caliphate. These distinctions are fundamental. To say that Europe is a civilization apart is not to say it is better or worse. It is merely to say: This is us and that is you. Nor is it to say that Europe ought to be a closed civilization. It merely needs to be one that doesn’t dissolve on contact with the strangers it takes into its midst.

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Justin Trudeau Elected Prime Minister of Canada Canadians vote to unseat Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Liberal Party wins a majority of Parliament’s 338 seats By Paul Vieira

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

OTTAWA—Canada’s Conservative leader was ousted in a national vote Monday after almost a decade in power, as voter discontent and a souring economy helped the son of long-serving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sweep into the top office.

Justin Trudeau’s centrist Liberal Party was headed for a majority government, with his party leading in or elected in most districts across the country, after a hard-fought contest with incumbent Stephen Harper. Mr. Harper said last night that he would step down as party leader, after conceding to Mr. Trudeau.

Results from polls in the country’s most-populated regions, Quebec and Ontario, and from Canada’s Eastern Seaboard and the Pacific Coast city of Vancouver, showed a wave of Liberal red, marking an impressive victory in Mr. Trudeau’s first campaign as leader. The win represents the first Liberal majority in 15 years. The Conservatives maintained their bedrock support in the resource-rich western provinces, as well as in the bulk of rural Canada.

ANTI-SEMITISM, MEDIA Comments turned off

Ira Sharkansky:The spread of fervent nationalism from Palestinian neighborhoods to the New York Times

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

The New York Times should do better than Jodi Rudoren. Her screed, presented as a lead article, deals with the suffering of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. It meets the elemental demands of balance by virtue of noting the violence directed by Palestinians at Israeli Jews, but its tilt is heavily in the direction of poor suffering Arabs, badgered, discriminated against, and killed by Israel’s Jews.

The headline begins her message, “East Jerusalem, Bubbling Over with Despair.”
She describes East Jerusalem to “the emotional heart of Palestinian life.”
She highlights the good people living in Arab neighborhoods, inconvenienced and insulted by Israeli security measures..
Their neighborhoods are the “neglected stepchild” of the municipal government, and 320,000 residents suffer from poor services as well as other indications of discrimination.
There’s a fear of an Israeli takeover of the Muslim holy site in the Old City.
“Even as they benefit from Israel’s robust economy, many seethe as they pump gas or stock shelves for better-off Jewish peers.”
Palestinians died in a fire because it took a while for personnel and equipment to come from a distant Palestinian neighborhood, while there were closer facilities in a Jewish neighborhood.
Many more Palestinians than Jews have been killed in the recent violence.

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Palestinian society abuses its children, teaching them to kill and be killed Eli Hertz

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

Countless Palestinian parents support, encourage and praise the sacrifice of their children in suicide bombings, stabbings and other terrorist attacks.International law prohibits using children to fight. Article 38 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted in 1989) condemns the recruitment and involvement of children in hostilities and armed conflictsA criminal Palestinian Arab leadership, along with cowardly and intimidated Palestinian parents on the West Bank and Gaza, exploit their children to engage in armed conflict – in opposition to values held by the rest of the civilized world and in flagrant violation of international law and common decency.There is no excuse for sacrificing the youth of any society for political gain and tactical advantage. If this is to stop, the culpability must be put squarely on the shoulders of Palestinian society and others, who legitimize, support and “understand”such child sacrifice.UN Security Council Resolution 1377 reaffirms its unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed……please read this article from 2009

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A Death Cult’s Terror Against Israelis – on The Glazov Gang

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/10/20/a-death-cults-terror-against-israelis-on-the-glazov-gang/

This special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Dr. Anna Geifman, the author of Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia. She unveils the new phase of the old war – and who is behind it.

Don’t miss it:

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Could Iran Get Ex-Im Loans? By Christine Brim ****

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

Voting to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank could allow floods of U.S. taxpayer money to reach Iran’s terrorist government.

On October 9, 218 House lawmakers, including 42 Republicans, signed a discharge petition to bring the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization back from the dead. The petition, which Republicans initiated, has resulted in a scheduled October 26 vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, that 80-year-old relic from the days of the New Deal.

Conservative Republicans in both the House and Senate have opposed reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank, accusing it of crony capitalism, ongoing corruption, conflicts of interest, and accounting methods that hide the actual market risk of its loans (the risk that the loans won’t be paid back).

Here’s another reason to question reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank: specific language in the Obama administration’s Iran deal that ends prohibitions on Ex-Im bank financing for sales to Iran, including sales to businesses the Iranian government owns.

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Canada votes first new leader in 10 years as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party wins See note please

Posted By on October 20th, 2015

Stephen Harper has been the most pro Israel leader in the world. ….RSK

Is it possible that Israel has friends like Canadian PM, Stephen Harper, left in the world? His honesty and strong pro-Israel stand is so uncommon that it inspires admiration. And he knows it.

“There are, after all, a lot more votes—a lot more—in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But as long as I am prime minister, whether it is at the United Nations, the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost.”

Harper has little to gain from his strong pro-Israel speech as only 1 percent of the Canadian population is Jewish. But, as he says so well in his speech on Parliment Hill at a conference on anti-semitism at the start of Holocaust Education Week, “Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tell us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us”.

We all have much to learn from this honest and courageous man who takes a stand on what’s right, because it’s right with no consideration of personal gain.

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MY SAY: HOW PROFOUND!

Posted By on October 19th, 2015

I got a lot of flack for deriding Henry Kissinger’s Wall Street Journal Editorial “A path out of Middle East Collapse”which I called “prattle.” I greatly admire James Lewis who writes for the American Thinker , and enjoy his columns and wisdom , but today he defends Kissinger so I took a second look.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/henry_kissinger_is_nuclear_catastrophe_inevitable.html

He calls Henry Kissinger “the wisest foreign policy analyst in the land” and gives these examples: Parenthesis mine

Kissinger’s most crucial point: “If nuclear weapons become established (in the Middle East), a catastrophic outcome is nearly inevitable.” (wow! who would have thunk)

And then enumerates other “high points” of Kissingerian profundity:

1. “With Russia in Syria, a geopolitical structure that has lasted four decades is in shambles.” (no kidding)
2. Four Arab states have ceased to function: Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. All are at risk of being taken over by ISIS, which aims to become a global caliphate governed under shariah law. ( You think?)
3. The U.S. and the West need a coherent strategy. We don’t have one now. (Really?)
4. Treating Iran as a normal power is wishful thinking. It could happen over time. But today, Iran “is taking on an Armageddon dimension.”
Israel is in the maelstrom, but so is the rest of the world, which is why Russia is making an unprecedented military intervention in Syria. Putin is protecting Russia first of all. (Hmmm….sounds ominous)
5. “So long as ISIS survives and remains in control of a geographically defined territory, it will compound Middle East tensions… The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad.” (How original)
6. “The US has already acquiesced in a Russian military role.” (Gasp!!!)

My case that it is mostly prattle rests….rsk

BOOKS Comments turned off

ISIS Fires Up Palestinians by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on October 19th, 2015

The current wave of stabbings of Jews in Israel is an attempt to imitate Islamic State terrorists, who have been using knives to behead many Muslims and non-Muslims. In most attacks, the Palestinian terrorists focused on the victims’ throats and necks. They are trying to replace Islamic State jihadis as the chief “butchers” of humans in the Middle East.

How can our leaders in Ramallah accuse Jews of “contaminating” the Aqsa Mosque with their “filthy feet” at a time when our youths burn a religious site such as Joseph’s Tomb? Palestinian Authority security forces, which maintain a tight grip on Nablus, did nothing to prevent the arson attack.

The attacks are an attempt to erase history so that Jews will not be able to claim any religious ties to the land. This is exactly what the Islamic State is doing in Syria and Iraq.

Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are lying. This is not a struggle against “occupation” or a wall or a checkpoint. This is an Islamic State-inspired jihad to slaughter Jews and wipe Israel off the face of the earth.