RUTHFULLY YOURS

Members of Congress send inquisitorial letters to universities, energy companies, even think tanks.

Research in recent years has encouraged those of us who question the popular alarm over allegedly man-made global warming. Actually, the move from “global warming” to “climate change” indicated the silliness of this issue. The climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. This normal course is now taken to be evidence of doom.

Individuals and organizations highly vested in disaster scenarios have relentlessly attacked scientists and others who do not share their beliefs. The attacks have taken a threatening turn.

As to the science itself, it’s worth noting that all predictions of warming since the onset of the last warming episode of 1978-98—which is the only period that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attempts to attribute to carbon-dioxide emissions—have greatly exceeded what has been observed. These observations support a much reduced and essentially harmless climate response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Kerry Visiting Saudi Arabia to assuage concerns

DUBAI—It isn’t just about Bibi. The Israeli prime minister’s public confrontation with President Barack Obama over the U.S. administration’s pursuit of a nuclear bargain with Iran may have drawn all the spotlight this week.
But America’s other key allies across the Middle East—such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—are just as distraught, even if they lack the kind of lobbying platform that Benjamin Netanyahu was offered in Congress.

These nations’ ties with Washington have already frayed in recent years, dented by what many officials in the region describe as a nagging sense that America doesn’t care about this part of the world anymore.

Now, with the nuclear talks nearing a deadline, these allies—particularly in the Gulf—fret that America is about to ditch its long-standing friends to win love from their common foe, at the very moment that this foe is on the offensive across the region.

“A lot of the Gulf countries feel they are being thrown under the bus,” said Mishaal al-Gergawi, managing director of the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi and a prominent Emirati political commentator. “The Gulf thought it was in a monogamous relationship with the West, and now it realizes it’s being cheated on because the U.S. was in an open relationship with it.”

In an interview on the PBS television ‘Charlie Rose’ program, President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to accept the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress on the issue of Iran’s looming nuclear threat had “injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the [U.S./Israeli] relationship.”

Nothing can further from the truth: it’s Mr. Obama’s partisanship which has produced a crisis in relations between the White House and Jerusalem, not Mr. Netanyahu’s –– and the record shows it.

Mr. Obama doesn’t mind foreign leaders speaking to Congressmen –– as long as they support his policy. That’s why he was happy for British Prime Minister David Cameron to do just that. But he deeply objected to Mr. Netanyahu critiquing his Iran policy to Members of Congress. It is not hard to see why: in his address to Congress, Mr. Netanyahu demolished the Obama claim that negotiations with Iran are going to lead to a deal that stops Iran going nuclear.

Sorry Peter Beinart: Young Americans Still Haven’t Turned Against Israel
This summer, toward the end of Israel’s Gaza offensive, Peter Beinart found something to smile about in an otherwise hard time—an apparent drop in support for Israel among young Americans. Beinart had been predicting since 2010 that U.S. opinion would grow less tolerant of Israel, but American support for Israel in 2013, as measured by Gallup, matched an all-time high. Now, though, a Gallup poll was showing that only 25 percent of younger U.S. respondents considered Israel’s actions in Gaza justified. Fifty-one percent considered them unjustified. Israel was losing America’s millennials, and so we could expect that, with each new conflict, “the American mood [would] incrementally shift.”

As I pointed out, previous dramatic declines in American support for Israel, as indicated by this poll or that poll, had been followed by recovery. But Beinart was nonetheless confident that this time the anti-Israel cake would bake at last, at least for the young. And Beinart was far from the only commentator to take this position.

It is therefore of some interest that Gallup is out with a new poll. Here is Lydia Saad, a senior editor: some “six months [after the poll on Gaza], young Americans’ broad sympathies toward the Israelis vs. the Palestinians are the same as a year ago.” Approximately 57 percent of 18-29 year olds surveyed both years said that they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians in the conflict. Sympathy with the Palestinians has also held steady at about 23 percent.

Whatever happens, Binyamin Netanyahu wrote his name in the history books. In capital letters.
Guy Millière – I wrote here that the speech by Binyamin Netanyahu in Congress would be the most important speech since the Second World War. The speech was delivered. It was what I expected.
Binyamin Netanyahu has not a single second damaged the friendship and alliance between the United States and Israel. Quite the contrary. He addressed, through Congress, the American people, values, that have continued to embody the United States of America since birth. He showed masterfully why the US and Israel were bound by much more than friendship and alliance.

I was in the House gallery when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a logical and compelling critique of the deal now on the table regarding Iran’s ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons. He laid out a new fact-based proposal that has shifted the burden of persuasion to the White House.

His new proposal is that “If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, at the very least they should insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal expires.” His argument is that without such a precondition, the ten-year sunset provision paves, rather than blocks, the way to an Iranian nuclear arsenal, even if Iran were to continue to export terrorism, to bully nations in the region and to call for the extermination of Israel.

“House Minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was present for Netanyahu’s address but did not greet him as he came into the chamber nor as he left. Afterwards, she released a statement saying that the speech was “an insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
On his return to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that as a result of his March 2 speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington, “many around the world heard what Israel has to say about the bad deal with Iran.” President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and 60 Democrats of both chambers of Congress were absent at the speech where Netanyahu spoke amidst standing ovations and cheers. Pushing back against critics of the speech (including Obama), Netanyahu said that there are indeed practical alternatives to the current negotiations between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear weaponization program.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s systematic evasion of federal recordkeeping requirements involved both the use of private email addresses and a server system installed in her Chappaqua manse. The servers, according to the Washington Free Beacon, may have been set up by shady longtime Clinton lackey Eric Hothem – under a false name (Eric Hoteham) slightly varied from his true name. It may also have been designed to give users the ability to erase emails without a trace.
Shannen Coffin’s excellent column today points out that Mrs. Clinton’s Clintonesque shenanigans not only appear to be a clear violation of the Federal Records Act; she may also have violated a federal penal statute that makes it a felony for the custodian of government records to conceal or otherwise tamper with them. I think there are other potential criminal violations as well. We don’t know enough about the former secretary of state’s emails yet to make a judgment about whether they involved classified matters – which could trigger liability under the espionage act (which governs the maintenance and severely limits the permissible disclosure of national security secrets).

He came. He spoke, and against a backdrop of political bickering, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered.

The living were attentive. The ghosts were listening.

The gist of his message was that a nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel, the United States, the Middle East and the entire world.

The deal in the works between President Obama and the ayatollahs must be stopped for the safety and security of civilization.

America is being duped by professional con artists.

Netanyahu cited Iran as “the foremost sponsor of global terrorism.” He evoked Haman as the ancestor of today’s murderous Persian imams.

Then it was Queen Esther who helped save the day. But for generations thereafter the Jewish people were scattered and defenseless.

As Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress today, controversy continues to rage over whether House speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) should have invited him without consulting Obama.

As it happens, Boehner did alert the White House an hour before the speech was announced. Whether or not that counts as consultation is an open question.

It’s worth noting though that Congress is a separate and co-equal branch of government. If Congress wants to hear someone speak, it does not have to get permission first from Obama or anyone else in the White House. At some point in the near future, Congress, or at least the Senate, may have to approve or reject whatever deal Obama makes with Iran. America’s duly-elected legislators have every right and power to summon whomever they wish to give them information and perspectives to help them make decisions on any such agreement, as well as broader American policy on the Middle East.