RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/kenneth-levin/jeffrey-goldberg-jackson-diehl-and-obamas-targeting-of-israel/print/
In his recent hour-long White House interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, President Obama once more unleashed a biased, dishonest attack on Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Goldberg, like all too many high-profile writers and commentators, gave the president a pass on his anti-Israel riff and even seconded it. A striking contrast, demonstrating incisive, reality-based coverage of Obama’s anti-Israel slant and its inevitable negative consequences, has been provided over the past five years by the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl.

Goldberg’s interview received wide attention for the president’s warnings to Netanyahu that he must quickly reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians or Israel could face dire consequences from a world impatient with the Jewish state’s supposed foot-dragging in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the tenth year of a four-year term, the president had only positive things to say, including definitively characterizing him as ready for a peace deal.

The Goldberg interview, broadcast on Bloomberg News, was wide-ranging, touching extensively on Iran and Syria as well as Israel, and Goldberg has been praised by some for his handling of the hour. Elliot Abrams, on The Weekly Standard website, wrote: “… kudos to Goldberg; he pressed Obama repeatedly, challenging vague formulations and seeking clarity. Goldberg pushed Obama hard, especially on Iran and Syria.

But on Israel Goldberg pushed Obama not at all, even when the president made assertions untethered from reality.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/putins-contempt-for-obama-on-the-glazov-gang/

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Igor Melcuk, a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Montreal and Member of the Royal Society of Canada. A scientist and “reluctant” Soviet dissident, he left the Soviet Union in 1977 after being expelled from the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences because he defended Andrei Sakharov​ in a letter published in The New York Times​.

Prof. Melcuk joined the Gang to discuss Putin’s Ukraine Gamble. The discussion occurred in the context of Putin’s Contempt for Obama. Prof. Melcuk explained why the Russian president laughs in the Radical-in-Chief’s face, what he is really after, what he really fears, and what dangers he poses:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/lois-lerners-lies-and-cover-up-revealed/print/

Former IRS mandarin Lois Lerner orchestrated an unprecedented crackdown on Tea Party and conservative groups and then attempted to scapegoat those nonprofits, blaming them for the harsh treatment they received at her instigation, according to a damning report released yesterday by congressional investigators.

The report came out six days after Lerner appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee under subpoena and for a second time refused to testify about IRS targeting of right-of-center 501c4 nonprofit advocacy groups during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. (The full report is available in PDF form at the committee’s website.) At the March 5 hearing, which was a continuation of a hearing started last year, Lerner again opted to invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

President Obama has claimed that there was not even “a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS affair but anyone with eyes knows the Obama administration has been stonewalling and intimidating witnesses who know the ugly truth about these Third World banana republic-style tax abuses.

Democrats correctly view Tea Party groups, that is, right-wing populist groups, as an existential threat to the Left. These nonprofits tend to be Republican-leaning organizations and they have been successful so far in derailing, or at least slowing, parts of President Obama’s ongoing transformation of America. Many left-wingers don’t believe such groups are legitimate and don’t want them granted official recognition and tax-exempt status by the IRS.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/fdr-to-stalin-i-would-give-saudi-king-6-million-jews/print/

This isn’t really new, but some of the most interesting material comes from Rafael Medoff’s demonstration of how the material was buried and misreported by historians sympathetic to liberal presidents.

When FDR endorsed quotas for Jews in the US and even North Africa, liberal historians claimed that he was being “practical” or actually trying to help Jews. And then there’s the story of the efforts to bury and lie about FDR’s exchange with Stalin about the Jews.

The first inkling that FDR’s private attitude toward Jews was less than amiable came during the mid-1950s debate over the publication of the transcripts of Roosevelt’s February 1945 conference with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill at Yalta. In 1953, Republican senators began pressing for publication of the full transcripts of the conference.

The State Department opposed publishing the records, on the grounds that they contained sensitive information that might be harmful to the United States or its allies. Eventually, in March 1955, the Yalta transcripts were released as part of the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Two passages that appeared in the original Yalta minutes were deleted from the published version. One had to do with a conversation between American and Soviet military commanders. The other pertained to an exchange between FDR and Stalin concerning Jews.

Had the State Department simply left in the passage about Jews, it might have attracted less notice. Instead, the obvious omission intrigued observers. The New York Times reported that Roosevelt and Stalin discussed Soviet Jewry, Zionism, and the Soviet attempt to establish a Jewish “homeland” in the Siberian region of Birobidzhan.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/03/israels-big-mistake/
Israel’s biggest mistake is not having recognized the faith-driven aspect of its Arab/Moslem enemies. As Victor Sharpe has often reminded us: ““Wherever the Muslim foot has trod triumphal that is forever considered by Muslims as Islamic territory and enters the Dar al-Harb (the House of Islam). Wherever and whenever such territory is liberated from Islamic occupation it then enters for Muslims the Dar al-Harb (the House of War) and forever after it becomes incumbent on all Muslims to wage endless and relentless war against it.Thus for Israel, the Jewish state, even if it withdrew to just one downtown city block in Tel Aviv, it would still be unacceptable to Islam and would be warred against until it was no more. This is the very fundamental reason why there can never be a true and lasting peace with the Muslim world and phrases such as “land for peace’ or the so-called “Two State Solution” are pure insanity.”
YOAV SOREK: ISRAEL’S BIG MISTAKE
“These words are printed in three languages, loud and clear, on big red signs beside Israeli roads leading to Palestinian-governed territories:
This road leads to Area “A” under the Palestinian Authority. Entry for Israeli citizens is forbidden, life-threatening, and against Israeli law.

The warning is unlikely to shock anyone familiar with Israel today. As those of us who live here know all too well, a trip inside one of these areas can indeed prove fatal.

Yet the term “Israeli citizens” belies a deeply unsettling truth: not all Israelis need avoid entering these areas. Israeli Arabs come and go freely, and are even encouraged to conduct business in the territories. Only Jewish Israelis are at risk of death. No less unsettling is that one encounters such signs not at distant outposts, far from densely populated Jewish towns, but on the fringes of Jerusalem and the outskirts of Tel Aviv, just a few miles from Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Israeli Jews have resigned themselves to this reality. Under the laws of our own government, areas within what we consider our ancient national homeland are simply off-limits to Jews. We are not taken aback by this circumstance, not even disturbed. When the Palestinian Authority names central streets after suicide bombers with Jewish blood on their hands, we don’t think twice about it. And when we talk about a Palestinian state, we take it for granted that Jews will not be allowed to live there—or that, if allowed, they would never feel safe enough to do so.

To be sure, in the latest round of negotiations headed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, all sorts of suggestions have been floated for normalizing relations between Israelis and Palestinians. At the end of January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went so far as to raise the prospect of Jewish settlers having the right to remain in a future Palestinian state. But the outcry of protest from his own coalition partners, together with the longstanding stony refusal of Palestinian leaders even to consider the notion of a single Israeli Jew living in their prospective state, has only underlined the grotesque abnormality of our situation.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/tesserae/2014/03/pass-the-fig-leaf-please/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=4b9c347525-2014_3_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-4b9c347525-41153705

The day before Russian President Vladimir Putin flexed his muscles in Ukraine, the columnist Jeffrey Goldberg asked President Obama whether, given his failure to police his own “red line” in Syria, countries like Russia and Iran still believed he was capable of using force to advance American interests. Repudiating the inference, the president pointed to his threat last fall to intervene militarily with targeted strikes in Syria. That threat, he averred, was directly linked with the support subsequently given by both Russia and Iran to the agreement stripping the Assad regime of its chemical weapons:

We’ve now seen 15 to 20 percent of those chemical weapons on their way out of Syria with a very concrete schedule to get rid of the rest. That would not have happened had the Iranians said, “Obama’s bluffing, he’s not actually really willing to take a strike. . . .” Of course they took it seriously!

In three ways, this rendition of events is illusory. First, the Syrians are not, in fact, sticking to the chemical-weapons agreement. Assad has repeatedly dragged his feet, delaying the process of removing the weapons in order to keep Washington and the Europeans dickering with him; in the meantime, Syrian security forces continue to enjoy a free hand slaughtering people by means of conventional arms. Second, and more important, Obama’s stated goal in Syria was to establish a process that would force Assad to step aside and make way for a transitional government capable of ending the civil war. Touting his “success” with Assad’s chemical weapons is a sleight of hand, deflecting attention from the abject failure of that larger aim.

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2014/03/11/the-lunchbox-a-review/?print=1

Ila, a Mumbai housewife sends her husband his lunch in a customary Indian tiffin that’s color -coded and brought to his desk by specially trained delivery men on bikes. Insecure about the coolness in their marriage, she prepares a particularly aromatic meal on the advice of the upstair neighbor, Auntie, who is heard but never seen. Even though the delivery system has been vetted and approved by the Harvard Business School, the lunch goes to the wrong man. Ila realizes this quickly but annoyed by her husband’s indifference and spurred on by Auntie, the voice of experience from on high, she continues to send increasingly delicious and fragrant meals to the man she doesn’t know, initiating a correspondence between them that becomes far more intimate and meaningful than her dissolving marriage and his widowed loneliness.

Within this somewhat familiar plot lies a movie of poetic and subtle restraint in which the simplest sentences and smallest changes of expression are conveyed by two remarkable actors – Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur. The former has appeared in one season of In Treatment and in The Life of Pi – his luminescent eyes and total command of the screen give us an instant read on his retreat from life and his guarded protection of his feelings from any further hurt. We see his annoyance with the neighborhood children whose ball invades his gated space; we see him eating his lunch alone day after day and we see his prickly resistance to the garrulous and sycophantic new employee who has been hired to replace him when he retires and whom he is expected to train.

As the lunches and letters keep coming, we see the break in his armor and a disarming smile spread across his handsome face. Suddenly, the man who stood in the crowded train boxed in by other commuters is standing on the edge near an open window with his hair blowing in the breeze. The man who threatened the street urchins can gaze lovingly out his window at the scene of family warmth in the apartment across the way and smile at the little girl who had previously rattled him. His annoyed relationship with the new replacement softens into tolerance of that man’s inadequacies and compassion for his orphanhood – a paternal friendship develops. There are surprises in his relationship with Ila and in her re-appraisal of her marriage and her understanding of her mother; to reveal more would be a spoiler.

The Questions No One Asks by Bassam Tawil http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4209/the-questions-no-one-asks The Palestinians aspire to control all the holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, not only those holy to Islam, but those holy to Christianity and Judaism as well. They understand that [in a peace agreement] they would have to declare the end of the […]

http://familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/arizona-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

John McCain (R) Next Election 2016

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/
Jeff Flake (R) Next Election 2018

http://www.flake.senate.gov/public/

District 1

Ann Kirkpatrick (D) Incumbent

http://kirkpatrick.house.gov/about

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Ann_Kirkpatrick.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT

http://kirkpatrick.house.gov/issues/energy-and-environment

“Ending our dependence on foreign oil and investing in a renewable energy economy are important priorities, but my district has dozens of small towns and thousands of small businesses and working families who cannot afford new burdens. I will not support efforts that would harm the local economies in my district or that lack provisions for responsibly transitioning these communities toward a clean-energy economy. I remain committed to finding innovative ways for us to move forward and jump-start our renewable energy economy. Arizona’s first wind farm is in my district, and I would support efforts to attract more such projects.

NATIONAL SECURITY

http://kirkpatrick.house.gov/issues/national-security

Statement on vote against Amash Amendment and in favor of Nugent Amendment to H.R. 2397

Jul 26, 2013 : “In the United States, we live in a free and open society. This freedom delivers broad civil liberties but demands vigilance against those who would do us harm. I opposed the Amash Amendment to H.R. 2397 because it would hastily dismantle an important counterterrorism tool that protects our nation. A rushed or reckless overhaul is not the answer. As elected leaders, we have a responsibility to balance individual privacy and national security in a careful, strategic manner.
Adam Kwasman (R) Challenger

http://www.adamkwasman.com/

Adam Kwasman is an economist and member of the Arizona House of Representatives. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and sits on the Appropriations, Commerce, and Joint-Legislative Budget Committees. In the legislature, Adam served as a prime co-sponsor of Transaction Privilege Tax reform, the greatest tax simplification measure in Arizona history.

ECONOMY/JOBS/ENVIRONMENT

http://www.adamkwasman.com/congress/kwasman-on-the-issues/

“The NGS and Kayenta Mine provide thousands of jobs and have a long term multi-billion dollar impact, while providing affordable energy throughout Arizona. Their future is endangered by radical bureaucrats in the Obama Administration’s EPA. The priority for any representative from this district must be saving the Navajo Generating Station from closure.”

“We must do everything necessary to secure the border and end illegal immigration. Arizona’s illegal immigration problem is a threat to national security, and Washington has failed in protecting our citizens. We must defend the citizens of this state.”

“Obamacare is a monstrosity and must be repealed. It raises taxes, creates uncertainty in the marketplace and has prevented employers from hiring, cuts a quarter trillion dollars from Medicare and puts medical decisions in the hands of unelected bureaucrats while premiums skyrocket. Worse, it will not improve outcomes for patients.

Congress should allow health care to be purchased across state lines, making it more affordable for everyone, enable association health plans, expand Health Savings Accounts, and put patients in charge of their own health care.”
Jim Brown (R) Challenger

http://www.jimbrowntocongress.com/
Andy Tobin (R) Challenger

http://www.andytobin.com/
Gary Kiehne (R) Challenger

http://www.kiehneforcongress.com/

District 2

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7655

Netanyahu must heed his own warnings

Flanked by Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon and Navy Vice Admiral Ram Rothberg, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a press conference on Monday in the southern Israeli port city of Eilat. This was where the Israel Defense Forces unloaded the cargo of the Panamanian-flagged Klos C ship, intercepted by commandos last Wednesday, which originated in Iran and was bound for Gaza.

The “show and tell” presentation, which took place alongside rows of long-range missiles, mortar shells and hundreds of thousands of AK-47 bullets, was to illustrate to the international community that the Islamic Republic is on the war path.

It is not exactly a hot news flash that Iran is going full speed ahead with its nuclear program. Nor have statements emanating out of Tehran done anything to assuage Western fears. On the contrary, Iran’s defense minister has been boldly flexing his muscles and boasting about newer and deadlier weapons in his army’s arsenal.

Nevertheless, the United States and Europe continue to harbor hope that negotiations with the mullah-led regime of Hassan Rouhani will bear fruit. What this means in U.N. lingo is that the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) have no intention of launching a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, and that they want to be persuaded to stop imposing economic sanctions, as well.