RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s been a while since renowned pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim took center stage in an international controversy.

Luckily for the 72-year-old expatriate (whose family moved to Israel from Argentina when he was nine, and who has spent the bulk of his career in Germany), his political views can always be counted on to give his baton a boost.

This week, the general music director of the Berlin State Opera and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle, announced his plan to take the show on the road to the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the wake of the nuclear agreement reached between Tehran and six world powers in July.

Because the mullah-led regime in Tehran views Western music as one among many threats to its reign of terror, however, the best Barenboim can do is “negotiate” a potential concert.

Of course, he cannot undertake this on his own. Such delicate affairs of state have to be orchestrated, literally and figuratively, by governmental bodies with the authority to engage in talks over such a sensitive matter.

On Monday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that “Iran is too large a player, too important a player in this region, to simply leave in isolation.” He also said that Iran is a major regional player that can be an “ally in fighting terrorism” — but that London must “tread carefully” in its relationship with Tehran.

The remarks came as Hammond was visiting Tehran to reopen the British embassy there. Countries have been flocking to Iran following the signing of the nuclear deal and are falling over themselves to get their piece of the Iranian multibillion-dollar pie.

According to British newspaper The Guardian, Hammond questioned whether Iran was really committed to destroying Israel, claiming that this had been the position of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s predecessor, and Rouhani had a “more nuanced approach.”

From the first moments President Obama took office, he has downplayed threats from radical Islamists. He was elected based on his promise to bring the troops home. He was reelected after claiming that al -Qaeda was “decimated.” Al-Qaeda was nothing of the sort. And while the United States withdrew from the Middle East, an even darker and more heinous threat filled the void.

It’s been known for over a year that the administration is downplaying the threat posed by ISIS.

Even as Pentagon spokesmen were painting a rosy picture of the coalition’s progress, the terrorists were gaining huge swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, leaving a horrifying path of destruction in their wake.

Now, an IG investigation is looking into whether the ISIS analysis was purposefully distorted.

A judge blocked a controversial Environmental Protection Agency rule to “clarify” the definition of protected waters hours before it was set to go into effect Friday.

The EPA Waters of the United States rule covers “most” seasonal and rain-dependent streams, which account for about 60 percent of stream miles in the country, arguing they have “a considerable impact on the downstream waters.”

Wetlands “near rivers and streams” would be protected under the CWA, and “other types of waters [that] may have more uncertain connections with downstream water and protection will be evaluated through a case specific analysis of whether the connection is or is not significant.” Critics say this could be construed to even include ponds and ditches on private property.

The U.S. District Court in North Dakota granted a preliminary injunction against the rule going into effect — but that only covers 13 states that are parties in one suit against the regulations, and the EPA said others would be subject to the rule starting Friday. There are additional pending lawsuits as well, with more than half of the states in the nation participating.

Frontpage Magazine has published a bombshell report that has been met with total silence by the media. Daniel Greenfield’s piece is entitled “Traitor Senators Took Money from Iran Lobby, Back Iran Nukes.”

Our politicians bought by Iran include not just a list of senators and congressmen about to vote on the Iran deal. Recipients of Iran’s largess for their campaigns include President Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton.

Both of Obama’s secretaries of state were involved in Iran Lobby cash controversies, as was his vice president and his former secretary of defense. Obama was also the beneficiary of sizable donations from the Iran Lobby.

Iranian-American activists against the mullahs’ regime in Iran correctly described IAPAC as a “lobby group for a terrorist regime.”

Hillary Clinton hired one of the founders and trustees of the Iran Lobby (IAPAC), an unsavory fellow named Hassan Namazee, as her national campaign finance director in her first run for president.

President Obama himself accepted $50,000 from one of the Iran Lobby founders.

I asked this question to Senator Cruz last week when he was in my town for a stump speech and fundraiser. The answer was as disappointing as it was swift: No. There are not enough Democrats willing to put love of country ahead of partisan politics.

Donald Trump has not helped. He is sucking up all the media attention, and Iran is not important to him. In Trumps stump speeches, Iran is just one in a list of deals he could have done better. In the crucial few weeks leading up to the Iran vote, the Donald is helping to lull the public into complacency on Iran. This is very damaging to America and Israel, despite all of Trump’s professions of love.

Obama will get his veto-proof vote. He will be allowed to capitulate to Iran, with $120 billion thrown in for them to splurge on terror to their heart’s content. We will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and purchase ICBM missiles that can reach America. We will give birth to a Shi’ite-Sunni nuclear arms race. We will sow this whirlwind and live with the consequence for years. Because Democrats in Congress will give Obama their votes.

When, in 2012, I authored a cautionary tale about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, I never imagined a U.S. president who would, just a few years later, actively try to strengthen Iran’s geopolitical and financial position while providing international legitimacy to the Iranian nuclear program. But sometimes truth is scarier than fiction.

In my thriller, 35 Israeli submariners must decide what to do after Iran gets the bomb. In an unexpected twist on fiction, a small group of undecided members of Congress may similarly have to determine the course of history. They represent the last chance for a democracy to reject the nuclear appeasement of the Ayatollahs. There are reportedly 26 Senate Democrats currently in favor of President Obama’s Iran deal, so eight more are needed to sustain Obama’s veto of a Congressional resolution disapproving of the Iran agreement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In ways both subtle and blunt, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is sending a message to Vice President Joe Biden about his potential presidential campaign: This won’t be easy.
As Biden ponders a challenge to Clinton for the Democratic nomination, she has rolled out a string of high-profile endorsements in the early-voting contests of Iowa and South Carolina and scheduled an onslaught of fundraisers across the country in the effort to throw cold water on a possible Biden bid.
Donors who have publicly expressed support for a Biden run have been contacted by the Clinton team, according to donors and Democratic strategists who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private conversations. Even Clinton herself has made a few calls, they said, to express her disappointment.While Clinton and her team speak warmly of Biden in public, they have taken steps to show their dominance over the party’s establishment and President Barack Obama’s political infrastructure in hopes of quietly discouraging the vice president from entering the race.

The indoctrination of the next generation has emerged as a primary goal of the Islamic State.

The indoctrination of children has emerged as a primary goal of the Islamic State. Brainwashing children at a very young age to the ideology of the extremist group is the most effective way to assure its continuation and fill its rank and file in the next decade.

The horrifying video below shows a very young child dressed in signature Islamic State gear brandishing a large knife and beheading a teddy bear. The child receives kudos and encouragement from an adult in the background.

He forced the 24-year-old woman to get in his car at gunpoint. He took her to his apartment, where he raped her and bragged about how he had killed ten people. He also explained that since he was a Swedish citizen, he was now free to rape because he could not be deported.

“He of course realizes he is risking a very long prison sentence in the end, and should do whatever he can to avoid it, like get in a car and travel through Europe. That’s a pretty safe bet, considering the open borders.” — District Attorney discussing an accused murderer, released pending trial.

When asked if there might be terrorists and war criminals that have already been granted asylum in Sweden, Immigration Service Director General Mikael Ribbenvik said: “Yes, that is unfortunately the case.”

The obvious risk that they might commit terrorist acts, killing hundreds of Swedes, apparently makes no difference.