RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0521/current-events-debt-pushing-back-government-centered-society.html

Pushing BackA Government-Centered Society

We’ve come to a critical juncture in our history. The federal government is buying trillions of dollars of its own debt and plans to spend $47 trillion over the next decade in the belief that such expenditures will motivate the private sector to hire more workers.

By its nature government wants a bigger mission, more workers and pensions, and a greater scope for intrusions into people’s lives. It wants ever more taxes on income, consumption, property and wealth. It believes in the Orwellian view that taxes equal fairness more than it believes in growth.

The November election may come down to whether voters feel strongly about government’s increasingly dominant role in the day-to-day functioning of our society. As Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney puts it, President Obama “has spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government-centered society.”

The federal government’s debt is now 105% of GDP, having doubled its share since the end of the Reagan Administration. Debt is projected to top 120% of GDP within the decade, greased higher by a fake debt limit—which should be repealed and replaced—and an eerie absence of any cabinet meetings to control spending.

We know the issue well. Washington gets bigger, richer and more intrusive every year and is so powerful and self- contained that it runs without any budget. The hottest economic news, gossip and party invitations come from Washington. Businessmen spend more and more of their time trying to curry Washington’s favor—the most profitable corporate investments nowadays are in lobbyists, not research or worker training. A core purpose of the Declaration of Independence was to define the relationship between individuals and their government, which was to play a supporting role. But in recent years government has become deeply controlling.

Annual federal spending has grown from President Carter’s $500 billion to a staggering $3.8 trillion now, which is more than any European nation’s entire GDP. To expend that much money requires a Byzantium—millions of square feet of office space, billions in worker pay and benefits, conflicting laws and regulations, and mountains of contracts.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-05/news/31588284_1_terror-attacks-hearing-strip-search

“Cheryl Bormann, a civilian attorney for bin Attash, appeared in a conservative Islamic outfit that left only her face uncovered and she asked the court to order other women present to wear “appropriate’’ clothing so that defendants do not have to avert their eyes “for fear of committing a sin under their faith.’’ Sweet cheryl belongs to http://www.facebook.com/GitmoWatch…rsk
9/11 defendants ignore judge at Guantanamo hearing

They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that ended late Saturday in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted architect of the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the four men accused of aiding the conspiracy put off entering pleas until a later date. Another hearing was set for June 12.
Saturday’s arraignment, which should have taken a couple of hours at most, lasted almost 13 hours, including meal and prayer breaks, as the men appeared to make a concerted effort to stall the hearing at the U.S. military base in Cuba . The charges they face include 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism, which carry the death penalty.

Earlier Saturday, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl’s questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.

Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.

Ramzi Binalshibh began praying alongside his defense table, followed by Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, in the middle of the hearing; Binalshibh then launched into a tirade in which he compared a prison official to the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and declared that he was in danger.

“Maybe they will kill me and say I committed suicide,’’ he said in a mix of Arabic and broken English.

The detainees’ lawyers spent hours questioning the judge about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and “inflammatory and unnecessary’’ treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.

It was the defendants’ first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks, in which hijackers steered four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a western Pennsylvania field.

The defendants’ behavior outraged 9/11 family members watching on closed-circuit video feeds around the United States at East Coast military bases. One viewer shouted, “C’mon, are you kidding me?’’ at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn.
“They’re engaging in jihad in a courtroom,’’ said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn.

‘Julia’: Obama’s dream of government dependence

In the competition for the creepiest…
Read more…

FBI wants websites to be wiretap-friendly

If you are paranoid about the rise o…
Read more…

Biden left out of Obama’s top campaign meetings

On Sunday evenings, President Obama …
Read more…

AOL boss shrinks Huffington’s editorial role

Arianna Huffington’s duties as editr…
Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz1tzbCbFA1

New York Times Coverage of Israel: What Comes After Ridiculously Biased? http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/05/04/new-york-times-coverage-of-israel-what-comes-after-ridiculously-biased/?print=1 With the arrival of Jodi Rudoren as correspondent, New York Times coverage of Israel and related issues has now gone to a new level of ridiculous bias, especially after a predecessor who really did try to be fair. What is most impressive about […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ EUROPE HERE WE COME American Muslims grew in number over the past decade, outnumbering Jews for the first time in most of the Midwest and part of the South, while most mainline churches lost adherents, according to a census of American religions released on Tuesday. Some 158 million Americans were classified as “unclaimed” by […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ VICTORIES AND DEFEATS The whole “Gutsy Call” narrative depends on the calculus of risk. In going after Bin Laden, the SEALs were risking their lives, but what was Obama risking? An ordinary leader would at least be expected to suffer political fallout from a failure. But does anyone really believe that a media which […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1830

Playing the Osama card

U.S. President Barack Obama has a lot to be worried about these days, as his bid for re-election pushes into high gear. Now that the Republicans have an actual candidate, the U.S. president knows he cannot merely rest on the dubious laurels that landed him in the White House three and a half years ago.

Back then, his credentials consisted of his being the “Great Black Hope” and the ultimate anti-Bush. That female reporters were unabashedly throwing their underwear at him as though they were groupies at a rock concert didn’t hurt. And because he was such an unknown quantity (due to his not really having accomplished anything up until that point), a lot of otherwise average Americans didn’t bother to read beyond the fawning headlines to learn just what a radical he actually was.

Today, however, Obama is no longer the guy who was promising to transform America into one big happy labor union. He is now the incumbent, with a real record – and it’s a pitiful one indeed.

This is not to say that he has lost the support, or adoration, of much of the media. On the contrary, because Republican contender Mitt Romney is a Mormon who is proud of his affluence and business successes, the press has an even easier time portraying Obama as the champion of the poor. That it is the president who has been creating more poverty with each passing minute doesn’t come into the reportage. Luckily for all the president’s sycophants, the blame can be placed squarely on Wall Street.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2114/Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-For-Real.aspx Remember the sci-fi cult classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? The 1956 movie is about a small town where extraterrestrial “pods” take over the townspeople. Even pillars of the community change into zombielike clones, as revealed by their blank stares and abnormal impulses. Outwardly, though, the “pod people” remain unchanged. The town doctor, played […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=268649
Into the Fray: ‘Haaretz’ vs the Jews

The success of the post-Zionist strategy hinges on breaking the sense of kinship between the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

Independence Day is not a holiday for Israeli Arabs. Sixtyfour years ago, they lost their land and their national honor… [their aversion to] the national anthem “Hatikva” – which talks of “a Jewish soul yearning” – should serve as an incentive for devising symbols and events with which all Israeli citizens can identify without being false to themselves. – Haaretz editorial, April 27

And the two words that are the most important are “Nefesh Yehudi” [A Jewish soul]”. When I hear those two words I know why I am here. I know what I am doing here. – An oleh in an Independence Day interview on the significance of “Hatikva” – April 26

It is not often that I find myself disagreeing with The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline B. Glick. Indeed, for many years I have had nothing but the highest regard for her intrepid and articulate defense of Israel and Zionist ideals.

However, I am compelled to dispute the views articulated in her last column, “Post-Zionism is so 1990s,” in which she appears to convey the view that the threat of post-Zionism has waned into insignificance, or at least receded into obsolescence.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=4206
Film director Moshe Levinson completed his film “Benzion” this week – the same week that Professor Benzion Netanyahu died at the age of 102 • In an interview with Israel Hayom, Levinson shares new discoveries about the man whose genius is now being recognized by the general public.
Nadav Shragai

In the final seconds of the film “Benzion,” Professor Benzion Netanyahu, who died this week, recalls that when he studied the Bible as a child, he had difficulty identifying with “King David, the glory of the Jewish people.” Professor Netanyahu told Moshe Levinson, the film’s director and producer, “David is not an honest man. Saul, who was persecuted, the man who had to fight everyone who was against him, was the one I supported.” It seems that the film’s epilogue, which ends 53 fascinating minutes about Professor Netanyahu, sums up the personality of the elder Netanyahu, who stuck to his truth even when it was unpopular.