RUTHFULLY YOURS

Two victories this week for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one seismic, the other minor though not insignificant. First, he won a solid re-election victory that affirmed his dire warning of the peril from a nuclear-armed Iran. Secondly, he persuaded an influential American liberal that his campaign warning that Israel’s Arab citizens might swing the election against him was not a despicable, race-baiting tactic as alleged by other liberals.

Netanyahu may never learn of this second vote of approval from liberal comedian Bill Maher, but it remains worth savoring for conservatives here in the U.S.

It was heard on last night’s broadcast of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher during a panel discussion with former GOP congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia, ex-New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, and Republican strategist Mercedes Schlapp —

KINGSTON: He was making sure that his base showed up …

QUINN: By pandering fear …

SCHLAPP: That’s not fear. It was not fear. It was basically saying those Arabs are not going to vote for him and so he’s going to have to bring out his vote. This is what you do in an election, Bill.

MAHER: We got off on a tangent. Let me ask the question I was going to ask about this, which is when he said that, ‘Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls,’ I heard a lot of commentators here say, it would be as if Mitt Romney in 2012 on the eve of the election said black voters are coming out in droves to the polls. But I don’t know if that’s really a great analogy. I think that would be a good analogy if America was a country that was surrounded by 12 or 13 completely black nations who had militarily attacked us many times, including as recently as last year. Would we let them vote? I don’t know. When we were attacked by the Japanese, we didn’t just not let them vote, we rounded them up and put them in camps.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/video-mob-attacks-london-synagogue-yells-kill-jews
London synagogue attack by group of youths yelling ‘we will kill you’

Record number of 1,168 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in Britain in 2014

A synagogue in the London suburb of Stamford Hill was attacked by a group of approximately 20 youths Saturday night.

The youths, who yelled “we will kill you”, beat worshipers and vandalized property including tearing apart prayer books reported The Jerusalem Post.

One local Jewish man who was passing by the synagogue at the time of the attack suffered hits to his face after being overwhelmed by the group of youths after trying to grab one of them to bring to the police.

The attack, which was filmed by a member of the synagogue shows two groups of youths, one inside the building and the other trying to get in, screaming at each other through broken windows. Towards the end of the video, an object is shown being thrown through one of the windows after a man tries to shut the door, causing glass to fly towards the group inside.

The “Wizard of Oz” is the best available single-source explanation of American politics. Specialists, to be sure, will want to read the Federalist papers, de Tocqueville and the speeches of Lincoln, but the 1939 MGM movie gives you the essentials. We are a nation of scarecrows without a brain, tin men without a heart, and lions without courage. Nothing is going to cure us, but the next best thing is to feel better about ourselves. The Wizard, a broken-down carnival huckster impersonating the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz gives our three national archetypes not what they need, but the next best thing: A phony diploma, a testimonial, and a medal. The party favors don’t help the feckless trio (the Scarecrow proceeds to recite a comically mistaken formula for the length of the sides of an isosceles triangle) but they did wonders for their self-esteem.

America is a winner’s game. America succeeds because it breeds success and ruthlessly crushes failure. A main purpose of American politics, in turn, is to make losers feel better, without, of course, preventing them from losing. No president in American history more closely resembles the Wizard than Ob the Great and Powerful, the present occupant of the Oval Office. Self-esteem is America’s consolation prize and Obama spreads it with a shovel.

MIKE FLYNN: CNN POLL: VOTERS’ IDEAL 2016 CANDIDATE AN ANTI-OBAMA

A new CNN poll, asking Americans about their “perfect” candidate in 2016, is a bitter prelude to Obama’s presidential legacy. By strong majorities, Americans want a political leader with lots of experience who will reverse Obama’s policies.

Barack Obama first registered on the national political scene a scant four years before he was elected President. His entry into the national political arena was precipitated by a speech to the Democrat National Convention in 2004, when he was a state Senator and candidate for the US Senate. Rather than an event or singular accomplishment, his political fortunes were forged in words.

According to the CNN poll, 59% of Americans would prefer Obama’s successor to be a seasoned political leader who has been on the national scene, and in the public eye, for many years rather than a newcomer. An equally strong majority would prefer the next President to have executive experience, either in government or business, rather than a legislator.

Senator Dan Sullivan defeated Democrat incumbent Mark Begich in 2014. He was Alaska’s Attorney General and Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources where he promoted energy security and opposition to federal government overreach….rsk

All Americans should worry about the president’s recent illegal land grab.
President Obama’s plan to designate 12 million acres as wilderness in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge did not fool Alaskans. The announcement in January revealed his goal of starving the trans-Alaska pipeline by stranding tens of billions of barrels of American oil permanently under the Arctic tundra, and turning the state into a giant national park.

Given the huge importance the oil industry plays in employing Alaskans and funding state services, the president’s plan will wreak havoc on the state and especially its middle class. Gov. Bill Walker and nearly every member of the state legislature are united with the majority of Alaskans and Alaska Native leaders in opposition.

What “transforming America” really means.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/frontpagemag-com/obamas-true-intentions-on-the-glazov-gang/

After him are men even less likely to comply with a nuclear deal.

Negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 powers led by the U.S. are racing against a March 31 deadline to conclude a nuclear deal in Lausanne, Switzerland. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Saturday that negotiators had made “genuine progress” but that “important gaps remain.”

Yet what happens if the Iranian leadership that the U.S. and others are dealing with now is not in place to implement any agreement? Two recent developments suggest that the Islamic Republic may be heading toward one of its cyclical spasms of intense factional competition. The outcome could derail any deal, or leave the West committed to an agreement that is even less verifiable or useful than it might be today. There is scant evidence that the Obama administration is taking this into account.

Another week, another victory for disorder in the Middle East. This time the meltdown is in Yemen, where this weekend the U.S. withdrew the remaining U.S. special forces from a base where they were waging a drone war against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The withdrawal comes amid growing chaos in the country after Houthi militants deposed the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled the capital, San’a, for Aden last month. The Houthis belong to the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam and are receiving help from Iran. They are at war with Sunni jihadists, who struck back in bombings on Friday that killed 152 people in San’a and Saada province. An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility.

The New Fascism is being spawned on campus. Here recently at UCLA, the Inquisition Redux.

NB: Obama is now a runaway train. He is obviously losing control of himself and he will only pick up steam until Congress stops him. America is already paying dearly for the mistakes we made in 2008 and compounded in 2012, and it will only get worse until Obama (is scheduled to) leave office.

Dan Friedman
NYC

And:Daniel Mael, “Had a chance to talk with Scott Brown about campus anti-Semitism this AM and how the Obama Administration’s attitude toward Israel impacts the conversation.”

https://youtu.be/FnvojAm45a0

Nearly a week after election day in Israel, the country is still reeling from the results. In a rare case of uniformity, the political echelon, the pundits and the public are sharing the same sense of shock.

Surveys conducted over the past three months, since the government was disbanded and new elections were called, indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party was in deep trouble. Though he himself received relatively high marks as a statesman when compared with rivals, respondents to polls simultaneously expressed dissatisfaction with their lot, both economically and in terms of Israel’s standing internationally.

At 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, when the voting was concluded and the exit poll was released, the Left was devastated. Five minutes earlier, the assumption had been that the Zionist Union (the joint list formed by the merger of the Labor party, led by Isaac Herzog, and the Hatnuah party, headed by Tzipi Livni) was going to come out ahead; and the only question remaining had been by how much.

The Likud and its supporters had been hoping against hope for a tie or a single-seat loss — a situation that still would have enabled the Right to form the next government, even if the Zionist Union was given the first shot at doing so.

The worry all around was that the two major parties would be forced into forging a national unity government.