RUTHFULLY YOURS

Anne Marie Waters had planned to host a Mohammed cartoon exhibit in London today, but was forced to cancel the event due to the credible threat of violence against it. In response, she wrote the following essay on the significance of what did not happen today.

This is not how I expected to spend September 18th. I was supposed to be hosting an exhibition of harmless cartoons, along with others in this country and elsewhere who know the true value of freedom. Instead, I will write about it — while I still have the freedom to do at least that.

The Mohammed cartoon exhibition did not take place in London, not only because of the threat to those involved, and their families, but also because the Left went for our jugular and ensured that others would not support us. The despicable Hate Not Hope (I refuse to write that group’s name as they do), put together a complete fiction, aiming to intimidate others and discourage them from joining us. The far-Left extremists, accompanied by a Christian extremist, pretended that Tommy Robinson and I were using the cartoons to incite civil war. This was based on about ten minutes of speculation, to my memory, mostly initiated by said Christian extremist, stuck within about four hours of conversation — mostly about the Sharia Watch website. This is how low the Left is willing to stoop. Another left-wing blogger wrote that I might sue Vive Charlie; something else based on no truth whatsoever.

In an attempt to wrest some positive concessions from the Iranians in exchange for lifting sanctions against them under the Nuclear Iran Deal, an effort was made to require Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist and to release American hostages from captivity through the form of an amendment on Thursday, Sept. 17.

Senate Democrats rejected the attempt, preferring to preserve the Nuclear Iran Deal in its current form, rather than to make even these limited demands on the Iranians.

The amendment was offered by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The vote was 53 – 45, and 60 senators were needed to move the measure forward.

Only one Senate Democrat voted in favor of the Protect Israel and Free Our Prisoners amendment, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Neither Iran nor any other party has signed the ‘Iran Deal.’ That means there is no formal agreement. That means nothing bars Iran’s race to nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Iran Deal that is at the epicenter of a Congressional battle and the focus of so much attention for months is not actually any deal at all, as not one of the parties, including any representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has signed the Agreement.

This morning, Sept. 18, Cong. Mike Pompeo (R-KS-04) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. In that letter Pompeo informed the Secretary that while reviewing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Nuclear Iran Deal), he noted that there are no signatures on the so-called final Agreement.

The most remarkable aspect of this US surrender to Iran is that the Iranian regime is not some hypothetical threat
Democrats in the US Senate this week blocked a vote on the Iran deal for the third time.The most remarkable aspect of this US surrender to Iran is that the Iranian regime is not some hypothetical threat. It has been perpetrating acts of war against Western interests for more than three decades – including playing a key role in the 9/11 attacks on America.
That’s not just my opinion. It’s the view of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In a judgment that has received virtually no attention, federal Judge George B. Daniels found in December 2011 that Iran, with the participation of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was directly and heavily involved in the 9/11 atrocities.

Linda McMahon is one of the great Republican women….smart, accomplished and a black-belt debater….rsk

Am I the only Republican who remembers Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican? Undoubtedly I’m not, but the people running for the party’s presidential nomination seem to be suffering from collective amnesia as they turn the campaign into a slugfest.

The Republican field is full of smart, talented, experienced candidates. But while they all pay tribute to the greatest president of the modern era, too many are ignoring his marvelously sensible rule.Perhaps CNN was simply seeking to boost its ratings by asking candidates during Wednesday night’s debate, ironically held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, to comment directly on things their opponents had said about them. I know better than most that conflict between strong characters makes good TV. But does it make a good democracy or an enlightened electorate?

Enough, already. What the American people want isn’t a Friars Club roast, it’s a blueprint for success. We Republicans need to inspire confidence with our optimism, courage and high purpose. We need to point the way to a better, brighter future by offering specific solutions to specific problems.

On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius hailed Obama’s “enormous victory” on the Iran nuclear deal. To be sure, Obama’s victory was not against Iran. It was against Netanyahu.
Trading horses with Putin This week US President Barack Obama informed Jewish leaders that he plans to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on November 9.

Yawn.

After 42 Democratic senators spent September 11 blocking their Senate colleagues from voting on Obama’s nuclear deal with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the time has come to stop trying to influence the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran specifically and toward the Middle East in general. It’s a sucker’s game.

Obama’s supporters like to argue that the administration’s rupture with Israel over the Iran deal is nothing more than a difference of opinion about how best to deal with a problem that both sides wish to solve. But this is not the case.

It is great news that Fiorina has caught up and perhaps overtaken Donald Trump. She is a good debater, poised, intelligent and in command of facts. Kind of reminds me of the Hillary Clinton who debated Barack Obama in 2008 who was poised, intelligent and in command of facts.

Beware of crowning victors. Fiorina’s record…the real story….will be parsed as will Hillary’s “accomplishments” at the State Department. Both ladies (does one dare use gender terms?) lost elections to rather sketchy and liberal democrats with meager accomplishments. Hillary to Obama and Fiorina to intelligence challenged Senator Barbara Boxer.

Both have had policy opinions that have “evolved” over the years…..on immigration, supreme court appointments, Iran after 9/11…etc.etc.etc. Is Fiorina the real “non Clinton” everybody wants?

Stay tuned….rsk

Sol Sanders, my friend, has done it all, as correspondent, commentator, writer, and observer. He is unique. During our decades long friendship he introduced me to Hibachi food during marathon lunches where he recounted places he has been and people he has met. He once introduced me to Jonas Malheiro Savimbi a charismatic Angolan political and military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. It was at a small breakfast party in an Upper East Side apartment where Savimbi charmed us, all the while carrying a barely concealed little revolver. Sol has known rogues and heroes and spies. It is all in his new book.

In wonderful prose Sol takes us behind the scenes of the seminal events of the last century- the Cold War, China, Vietnam and the leaders and spoilers owho shaped policy. Read it!.

Satan in the modern world — that’s why Michael Walsh wrote The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West. Is Critical Theory that bad? Hear him out in an interview with National Review Online. — KJL

Kathryn Jean Lopez: “When reason sleeps, monsters follow.” How best to keep the lights on?

Michael Walsh: By reading further into what Goya meant by his famous work of art: “Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: United with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.” Human beings are attracted to both the dark and the light; the trick is not to lose yourself in darkness.

Lopez: “It is the thesis of this book that the heroic narrative is not simply our way of telling ourselves comforting fairy tales about the ultimate triumph of Good over Evil, but an implanted moral compass that guides even the least religious among us.” How can that be so? How can that be reclaimed/renewed/reestablished?

Walsh: Art, as I argue in these pages, is the gift from God, the sole true medium of truth. The 19th-century German biologist Ernst Haeckel famously declared that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” meaning that in growing from embryo to adult, the individual organism goes through stages that mimic the evolutionary stages of the species. But perhaps it is, in an artistic and religious sense, precisely the opposite: It is phylogeny that recapitulates ontogeny. The evolutionary development of the species — its teleology — was adumbrated in the first moment of life. Think of art, therefore, as the Big Bang Theory applied to the soul instead of the body; by imagining the creative process in reverse, we can approach the instant of our origins and then beyond.

The World’s Scientists, In Their Own Words, On Michael E Mann, His Hockey Stick And Their Damage To Science
Volume I Compiled and edited by Mark Steyn, with illustrations by Josh

Do I expect you to publicly denounce the hockey stick as obvious drivel? Well, yes.
Jonathan Jones, Professor of Atomic and Laser Physics, University of Oxford

Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred …because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.
Eduardo Zorita, Senior Scientist at Germany’s Institute for Coastal Research

Did Mann et al get it wrong? Yes, Mann et al got it wrong.
Simon Tett, Professor of Climate Science, University of Edinburgh

The defamation suit against Steyn by Michael E Mann, inventor of the global-warming “hockey stick”, is about to enter its fourth year at the DC Superior Court – which means Mark has a lot of case research lying around and he can’t wait forever for the trial to start. So he figured he’d put some of it in a new book, now available from SteynOnline.

In the fall of 2014, not a single amicus brief was filed on Dr Mann’s behalf, not one. He claims he’s “taking a stand for science”, but evidently science is disinclined to take a stand for him.

That got Mark curious as to what actual scientists think of Mann, his famous hockey stick, and his other work. So he started looking – and the result is a rollicking collection of insights into Big Climate’s chief enforcer by scientists from around the world, from Harvard to Helsinki, Prague to Princeton, with commentary from Steyn telling the story of the rise to global celebrity of one Mann and his stick.