RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/blog/at-the-brink-dr-john-lott-defines-americas-calamity/?print=1

At The Brink [1], the new book by economist Dr. John Lott (author of More Guns, Less Crime [2] and other books; also, he is a friend of mine), provides a detailed examination of five areas where the Obama administration is about to take us over the edge into, perhaps, the irrevocable collapse of our republic. Unfortunately, Dr. Lott makes it clear that these problems are not just Obama’s doing, but the result of bad policy decisions that have been coming from D.C. for a long time.

The five areas that Dr. Lott examines, in his thorough but readable manner: Obamacare; the stimulus bills that actually destroyed more jobs than they created; how Obama’s gun control policy was politically driven when not actually criminal; the regulatory destruction of business (at least businesses that were not contributing money to the Obama campaign); and the effects of tax policy.

The theme of each chapter was not new to me and I suspect may not be new to many readers of this review, but the depth of information that Dr. Lott marshals is gratifying. For example: I knew that 90% of Americans were happy with their medical care before Obamacare. What was a bit surprising was hearing that even the uninsured were satisfied with their health care. Only 3.9% of uninsured Americans in a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation survey described themselves as “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with their medical care. A 2003 ABC News/Washington Post survey taken in 2003 was only a bit worse: 4.9% of the uninsured were “somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied” with their medical care.

Dr. Lott uses statistics for the U.S. and Europe to demonstrate that the U.S. performs better — often much better — than Europe at the factors that should be among the demanding tests of the quality of a medical care system. For example: the percentage of cancer patients who survive for five years. The U.S. — ranked only 37th in medical care by the World Health Organization — performs better or far better on this measure than a number of countries that WHO ranks as having better medical care systems.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578485040214322234.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop Those AP Subpoenas The press corps finally discovers a case of government overreach. The same press corps that has blessed every Obama Administration enforcement action and regulatory intrusion has suddenly concluded that the feds are dangerously overreaching. The reason? The government is now investigating the press. Welcome to the club, but we’d also add […]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jason-miller/delta-airlines-saudi-arabia_b_883202.html
Delta Adopts Saudi Arabian Airlines’ No Jew Policy

For a long time in Michigan, Northwest Airlines had its hub at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. That meant an essential monopoly on domestic flights in and out of Detroit. A few years ago Delta Airlines took over Northwest Airlines and now the vast majority of domestic flights at Detroit Metro are operated by Delta. That fact makes it especially troubling to learn that Delta will add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam Alliance of partnering companies and would require Delta to ban Jews and holders of Israeli passports from boarding flights to Saudi Arabia. The partnership was originally announced by Delta Airlines in a press release on January 10, 2011.

World Net Daily reported that this issue “first was presented to Congress, the public and others by talk radio host and former U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy, whose own battle against discrimination was documented when his former radio station demanded he tone down criticism of Islam on his program. He then left the station.”

The article included correspondence from Kathy M. Johnston, Delta’s coordinator of Customer Care, explaining that Delta does not discriminate nor condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender. However, she stated , Delta must comply with all applicable laws in every country it serves. That means that if the Saudi government denies Jews from entering its country and Delta brings them there on its flight they can be fined.

The issue here is one of principle. Delta isn’t being forced to include Saudi Arabian Airlines into its Sky Team Alliance. In fact, Delta could stand on principle and refuse to include Saudi Arabian Airlines based on its discriminatory policy. No, it’s not Delta’s fault that the Saudi government is anti-Semitic, but it doesn’t have to go along with it. It’s as if the Saudis are telling Delta that when it comes to Jewish passengers its name should become an acronym: “Don’t Even Let Them Aboard.”

I know I’m not the only one who finds it troubling that Delta would go along with Saudi Arabia’s policy of not allowing Jews on their flights. While I’m not planning a vacation to Riyadh any time soon, I would have a hard time flying with Delta knowing they are collaborating with the discriminatory government of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis wield tremendous power in Washington. Prince Bandar, nicknamed “Bandar Bush” by George W., had unprecedented influence for an ambassador for over two decades: developing close relationships with 5 presidents, 10 Secretaries of State, 11 national security advisors and countless member of Congress.
In exchange for oil (between conventional and non-conventional sources, the U.S. has far greater resources), we sell them millions of dollars of sophisticated weapons and look the other way on human rights abuses. In the first decade of the 21st century, the Saudi oil lobby spent $100 million to sway U.S. businesses.
The Saudis have been major donors to American universities for decades – in the billions of dollars. This has bought them scholars and Islamic Studies departments, the ability to promote Islam, censorship of information/individuals unfavorable to Islam, etc.
Saudi money funds terrorism against America and U.S. interests, finances the teaching of Islamic hate ideology in American mosques, blocks the investigation of terrorist networks and subverts our society and values.
View the short video:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=JBMdDmIP5Y4&feature=player_embedded&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded%26v%3DJBMdDmIP5Y4

Janet Levy,
Los Angeles

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/139521/sec_id/139521

Bostonians may be relieved that the week of terrorism perpetrated by the Tsarnaev brothers which began at 2:49PM April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon Finish Line ended dramatically on April 20, 2013 with the capture of surviving younger brother Dzhokhar. However, the nation is perplexed about why this heinous and cowardly act occurred and what can be done to prevent possible re-occurrences in America. 26 year old Tamerlan, a 6’ 3” tall aspiring boxer was mortally wounded in a hail of bullets in a shoot out in Watertown, Massachusetts early Friday morning, April 19, 2013. This followed the murder of an MIT police officer and carjacking of a Mercedes SUV. 19 year old younger brother Dzhokhar, a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, survives. He was transferred to a prison medical facility after being initially treated at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. 11 victims were also being treated there after two blasts tore through crowds of spectators at the finish line of the iconic Marathon.

His late brother Tamerlan’s remains were interred at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia located 15 miles from the state capital in Richmond on May 10, 2013. A controversy has been raised by local Caroline County officials with the Commonwealth Attorney General about whether the burial of the Boston Marathon Bomber was legal.

Those Boston Marathon blasts occurred less than 13 seconds apart at approximately 2:49 PM on Monday, April 15, 2013. They left a trail of deaths and destruction in what is now called the Boston Marathon Massacre involving three dead and more that 282 treated for injuries. Fourteen were severely maimed for life with missing limbs. The deaths caused by the Tsarnaev brothers include 8 year old Martin Richard, 29 year old Krystle Campbell and 23 year old Lu Lingzi, a Chinese national and Boston University graduate student. 26 year old MIT police officer Sean Collier was killed by the Tsarnaevs while in his patrol car in Cambridge. Richard Donahue, a 33 year old Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority police officer was also shot and critically wounded.

http://www.newmediajournal.us/ The recent “scandals” plaguing the Obama Administration serve to illustrate that nothing lasts forever. The honeymoon with the mainstream media has ended after a record run and their steamroller approach to Washington politics has hit a “bump in the road,” and one they cannot circumvent. This moment in time presents some golden opportunities for […]

http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/

Obama and Kerry’s fingerprints all over Syria crisis

This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on FOX News.
In Syria, the motto for stopping the bloodshed might be summed up this way: when the going gets tough, the tough hold a conference. That’s the latest word from Secretary John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov who are planning the event for some time in June. Neither Assad, nor the opposition, has committed to attend.

Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly President Vuc Jeremić raised the number of dead on May 15 to “at least 80,000 people, most civilians.” Syrian NGOs this week put the figure at more than 94,000. With the Assad regime busy adding to the death toll, and rebels recently releasing a video of one of their own cutting out and then eating the heart of a Syrian soldier, the unfortunate reality is that good guys are few and far between.

[the article appeared in the print edition of DI last week… website is temporarily blocked] Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead, Dzhokhar is wounded and imprisoned, Bostonians cheered like baseball fans… The bad guys are caught, but the mujahidin escaped in a cloud of anecdotal details, hapless or deliberate misconceptions, and a blackout on the ways and […]

Hi Gang:
Just when you thought you had seen or heard it all, another outrageous story pops up!
A former colleague from the old INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) just forwarded an e-mail to me that has really rattled my cage!
The Inspector General that has responsibility for the Witness Protection Program, conducted an audit of that program and found gaping holes in the system. While it is important for the government to protect witnesses whose testimony and information is vital to conducting successful investigations and prosecutions of criminals and terrorists, it must also be remembered that witnesses can themselves, pose a threat to public safety. The Witness Protection Program is commonly known by an acronym, WITSEC that stands for “Witness Security.”
Perhaps the important WITSEC program should henceforth be referred to “WITLESS Security!”
Here is the headline from the most recent example of galactic incompetence by our government, this time where WITSEC is concerned, as it appeared in the Atlantic Wire article:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/us-marshalls-lose-suspected-terrorists-witness-protection/65307/

Here is how the CNN report filed by Jake Tapper begins:

townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2013/05/16/from-philosemitism-to-antisemitism-the-church-of-scotland-then-and-now-n1597184/print 3/3

Dennis Prager and others have done an excellent job of highlighting the genuinely anti-Semitic contentof a recent Church of Scotland publication entitled “The Inheritance of Abraham? A Report on the

‘Promised Land,’” and Prager has even called it “ugliest depiction of Jews since medieval times.” What has not been mentioned, however, is the great tradition of philo-Semitism in recent Scottish Church history, making the contrast all the more extreme.

Some of the great Scottish Presbyterian leaders of the 19th century built on the heritage of EnglishPuritan theologians like John Owen (1616-1683), who wrote, “The Jews shall be gathered from allparts of the earth they are scattered, and brought home into their homeland.”

Robert Leighton (1611-1684), a contemporary of Owen, stated, “Undoubtedly, that people of the Jews shall once more be commanded to arise and shine [with reference to Isaiah 60:1], and their return shall be the riches of the Gentiles (Romans 11:12 [meaning, bringing spiritual revival to the nations]),and that shall be a more glorious time than ever the Church of God did yet behold.”

In stark contrast, the recent report states, “There has been a widespread assumption by many Christians as well as many Jewish people that the Bible supports an essentially Jewish state of Israel. This raises an increasing number of difficulties. . . .”

So, what these 17th century theologians viewed with great longing, these 21st century theologians view with great loathing, even claiming that, “There is a direct conflict of interest between wanting human rights and justice for all and retaining the right to the land.”