RUTHFULLY YOURS

Earlier in the week I posted an item about the “Destroy Israel”conference in Harvard, where one of the speakers there is to be Marc H. Ellis, a pseudo-academic from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Ellis has pretensions of being a “Jewish theologian,” but is not recognized as such by any Jews. He is in fact a full time basher of Israel, who churns out “liberation theology” mixes of Marxism with anti-Semitism and calls for Israel’s extermination.

It turns out that there is now a move afoot at Baylor to sack Ellis.Evidently the heads of the school have figured out that their”professor” of “Jewish Studies” knows nothing at all about Judaism and is nothing more than a clone of Norman Finkelstein, who has already been fired from HIS school for being a fraud and bigot.

The radical Left is up in arms about this. A pro-Ellis petition was organized by the anti-Jewish Cornell West and is being promoted by such luminaries as Noam Chomsky. The very first endorsement of the petition is by Ilan Pappe. It accuses Baylor of trying to fire Ellis because of Ellis’ vile anti-Israel and pro-terror opinions (and just what would be so bad about that if it were true?). In reality, the initiative against him is because he misrepresents himself as a Jewish theologian and holds a university slot reserved for someone who knows something about Judaism. Ellis is on the board of Tikkun magazine and everything he knows about Judaism and the Bible seems to be things that Mikey Lerner, publisher of Tikkun, has taught him. In other words, neither has ever read the Bible, let alone studied the Talmud.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8889

Baylor University’s Anti-Jewish Liberation “Theologian” By: Steven Plaut

FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, May 05, 2005
Marc H. Ellis is university professor and director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University, a Baptist University in Waco, Texas, not ordinarily on anyone’s radar map as a particularly notable institution when it comes to the field of Jewish scholarship. Indeed, theologically Waco is best known for serving as home of the Branch Davidians and the abortive FBI raid on its headquarters. Thus fringe “theologians” seem to feel right at home there. Maybe it has something to do with being home to singer Willie Nelson.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577238990570535210.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
His long record of statements on religious and social issues are of a sort that large sectors of the American public find unpalatable.

These have been good days for Rick Santorum, buoyed as he campaigns by conservative Republicans cheering their newly anointed hope. Still, it will occur to at least some of his supporters that their hope is destined to be short-lived, that their candidate’s particular baggage would sink any presidential candidacy. Especially his.

It’s not only that a certain body of Santorum pronouncements on social issues exists, and that they’re of a sort that large sectors of the American electorate find unpalatable, to put it mildly. Or that he continues to add to them.

By the time Democratic researchers apply themselves to this compendium of Mr. Santorum’s views—in the unlikely event that he becomes the Republican nominee—it’s size will have doubled, at the least. The Republicans have already provided President Obama with high-value gifts this election year, but none nearly as delectable as the prospect of a run against Mr. Santorum.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577240754033762504.html
Newsflash: The Israeli prime minister did not declare on Facebook that he wishes death to 355 million civilians.
An incredible chain of events has recently played out in the Middle East, demonstrating the lengths to which opinion-shapers and politicians in the Arab world will go to demonize Israel.

It all began with a tragic road accident just north of Jerusalem last week. A school bus collided with a truck and flipped over, killing several children and a teacher and wounding dozens. Israeli and Palestinian emergency teams rushed to the scene and cooperated to rescue the surviving children and evacuate the worst injured to hospitals in west Jerusalem.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/02/24/the_4_billion_obamacare_slush_fund_for_progressives/print

If you like how the Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar “investments” in bankrupt solar companies have turned out, you’ll love the latest federal loan program to nowhere. It’s the Obamacare loyalty rewards program for progressives.

To appease liberal Democrats pushing for the so-called “public option” (the full frontal government takeover of our health care system), the White House settled for the creation of a $6 billion network of nonprofit “CO-OPs” that will “compete” with private insurers. It’s socialized medicine through the side door. House Republicans sliced about $2 billion from the slush fund in last spring’s budget deal and proclaimed the program dead. Hardly.

On Wednesday, the White House trumpeted the release of nearly $700 million in taxpayer-funded low-interest loans for seven CO-OPs in eight states. Administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the fund will pour more money into CO-OP plans nationwide throughout the next year. In 2014, according to Washington bureaucrats, the plans will be offered on the federally approved and federally monitored state health exchange “marketplace.”

Symposium: Russians vs. Vladimir Putin?

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/24/symposium-putin-forever-1/

In this special Frontpage Symposium, we have gathered an All-Star panel to discuss the power of the KGB and the meaning of the new freedom movement in the streets of Russia. This symposium originally ran last week, under the title “Symposium: Putin Forever?,” in our Feb. 17 issue. Due to the panel of titans that gathered and the vital dialogue that occurred, and in light of the events unfolding in Russia, the editors felt it appropriate to rerun this symposium.

Our distinguished guests in this symposium are:

Jim Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence 1993-95.

Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking official to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. Romania’s Communist president Nicolae Ceausescu was executed at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word for word out of Pacepa’s book Red Horizons, subsequently republished in 27 countries.

Evgeny Legedin, a street-art painter and political activist from Yekaterinburg. As a coordinator of the youth anti-Putin movement “Oborona” and participant in the democratic movement “Solidarity,” he has organized countless rallies and demonstrations of protest, including the all-Russian campaign for freedom of rallies “Strategy-31.” He is the author of the mock prize “Golden Evsyuk,” the “award” given every year to the worst policemen in Yekaterinburg. In fear for being imprisoned on fabricated criminal charges, he fled Russia on August 16 and reached the UK, where he is seeking political asylum.

Dr. Igor Melcuk, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Montreal and Member of the Royal Society of Canada. 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​.

Dr. Gregory Glazov, a Rhodes scholar who is now Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Immaculate Conception School of Theology, Seton Hall University, USA and Program Coordinator of the Institute for Christian Spirituality’s Great Spiritual Books program which frequently focuses on spiritual writings in Soviet and Nazi prison camps. He is currently completing several manuscripts that include commentaries on The Lord’s Prayer and on The Book of Job, as well as an introduction to Jewish-Catholic relationships, entitled, Brothers in Hope: Models of Judaism in Catholic Perspective (NDU Press), and a translation and commentary on Vladimir Solovyov’s writings on Judaism and Christianity, an interest that bespeaks his spiritual legacy as the son of Russian dissidents, Yuri and Marina Glazov.

Dr. Jay Bergman, a Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University, where he teaches Russian and modern European history. He received his bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and his M.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D from Yale University. He is the author of Vera Zasulich: A Biography, published by Stanford University Press​ ; and articles in Russian intellectual history. He is also on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Scholars, a nationwide organization of professors committed to reasoned scholarship, intellectual diversity, and nondiscrimination in faculty hiring and student admissions. His newest book is Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov, published by Cornell University Press.

Yuri Yarim-Agaev, a former leading Russian dissident and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Upon arriving in the United States after his forced exile from the Soviet Union, he headed the New York-based Center for Democracy in the USSR.

Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a world-renowned and critically-acclaimed author, retired physician (prison doctor and psychiatrist), a contributing editor to City Journal and the author of the new book, Anything Goes.

and

Dr. David Satter, a Rhodes Scholar who is now a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He was Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times of London from 1976 to 1982, during the height of the Soviet totalitarian period and he is the author of Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State and Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, which is being made into a documentary film. His new book is It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past.

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2878/abbas-peace-process

Abbas’s peace process will only lead to a Palestinian government or state controlled by Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Who says there are no peace talks going on in the Middle East?

The peace process is underway in the Middle East, but not between Israel and the Palestinians. The only peace talks that are taking place these days are between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Abbas has chosen to talk to the enemies of peace who want to destroy Israel and replace it with an Iranian-backed Islamist state. On the one hand, he says he supports the two-state solution. On the other hand, however, he is seeking to form an alliance with all those who are vehemently opposed to the two-state solution.

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2876/britain-multiculturalism

The British government has unveiled a new “integration strategy” designed to “champion a united British identity.”

The new policy will require immigrants seeking admission to live in the United Kingdom to learn English and adhere to “mainstream” British culture and values such as democracy and the rule of law.

The measures represent a continuation of recent efforts by the government to reverse decades of state-sponsored multicultural policies that have allowed Muslim immigrants to avoid integration and establish a parallel society in Britain.

The new strategy document titled “Creating the Conditions for Integration” was published on February 21 and states: “We will robustly challenge behaviors and views which run counter to our shared values such as democracy, rule of law, equality of opportunity and treatment, freedom of speech and the rights of all men and women to live free from persecution of any kind. We will marginalize and challenge extremists who seek to undermine our society and we will neither engage with nor fund such organizations.”

http://shmuelkatz.com/wordpress/?p=859

“Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee” — Isaiah 49:17
Last month, Barack Obama released a campaign commercial, “America and Israel: An Unbreakable Bond.” The seven-minute video proposes that Obama is the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House.
Helping add substance to this risible claim are none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who also appears in the video, says: “I can tell you in a very categoric way, and I believe also in an authoritative way, that we have not had a better friend than President Obama.”
The Obama campaign gleaned these clips from various interviews. The Israelis didn’t actually sit for the ad, though they might as well have. By praising Obama and covering for his obviously anti-Israel policies, Israel’s leadership has essentially become part of Obama’s re-election run.
It’s hard to find a worse example of just how bad Israel’s public diplomacy efforts have become than this campaign commercial — aiding a president who enters office determined to put “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, insists on an unprecedented Israeli settlement freeze, bars Israel from obtaining offensive weaponry, embraces the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, thwarts Israel from undertaking its efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, and bows to a Saudi king.

The Grilling of Rick Santorum Posted By Ben Shapiro

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/23/the-grilling-of-rick-santorum/

This week, the press has had a field day with Rick Santorum. It’s taken this long mainly because Santorum has only been relevant for the last five minutes or so – or at least since the forces of Mitt Romney carved up Newt Gingrich like a turkey dinner.

Once the digging started, it didn’t stop for Santorum. Matt Drudge headlined a 2008 speech in which Santorum spoke in fiery terms about the cataclysmic spiritual battle being fought in America: “Satan has his sights on the United States of America! … Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition …. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions.”

This is the kind of material that reinforces the popular perception of Santorum as a religious extremist focused on restoring American morality via the unbridled power of the state.

Does Santorum really want to use state power as a tool in his arsenal? Probably not. But it’s difficult to tell, since he’s been a big government conservative who has voted in favor of bigger government over and over again.

And then there’s his Washington insider status. This is a campaign of Washington outsiders. So far, Santorum’s been able to escape the scrutiny that sunk Newt Gingrich over his Fannie Mae lobbying work. But Santorum was a big time lobbyist in his own right – he was the point person for the so-called K Street Project, an effort dedicated to getting conservatives into high ranking lobbying positions. The motives behind the K Street Project were good – liberals dominate lobbying, and conservatives had to compete – but the effect was to make Santorum the key figure in a lobbyist-legislator revolving door. Santorum has pulled down an inordinate amount of cash for quasi-lobbying since leaving Congress, making nearly a million bucks per year each of the last two years.

And then there’s Santorum’s record on the unions, which is squishy at best. He voted for a 1993 bill protecting union members from being fired over strikes. He also backed the Davis-Bacon Act, requiring government contracts “to pay workers the local prevailing wage.” He opposed the National Right to Work law in 1996.

So is all of this criticism fair? It’s certainly as fair as any of the material the media dug up about Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and the rest of the non-Romneys. Gingrich, you’ll remember, was raked over the coals for supposedly bashing Reagan back in the 1980s. Rick Perry was hit by the other candidates on the immigration issue, although they basically agree with his entire immigration agenda (with the exception of the DREAM Act).

Strangely enough, the race has come down to the two candidates (three, if you count Ron Paul) who seem to attract a holier-than-thou segment. Mitt Romney supporters have long looked down their noses as the benighted conservative base that doesn’t trust their man. Ron Paul supporters have always intimated that only Ron Paul is a truly conservative candidate. And now, Rick Santorum’s supporters suggest that attacks on Santorum are attacks on conservatism.

This is sheer and absolute nonsense. Conservatives had better vet these candidates before the liberals have a chance to do so. If the liberals find damaging material you can bet they will hold it until right before the election and then spring it as an October Surprise that suddenly changes everything.

David Brock: Media Matters Madman Posted By Daniel Greenfield

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/23/david-brock-media-matters-madman-2/

David Brock is a member of an exclusive club of fake conservatives like Arianna Huffington who, when the winds turned blustery and the money looked better on the other side, crossed the Iron Curtain going the other way and headed to Moscow.

There is something to be said for the right, which has attracted its defectors from the best of the left. And there is something to be said for the left, which has attracted defectors from the worst of the right. While the right has gotten men like Irving Kristol and David Horowitz, the left has gotten a mentally unstable gay man and a woman who married a gay man for the money.

Since joining up with Team Soros, Brock has not engaged in journalism so much as become the head apparatchik of a propaganda corps, the officially unofficial smear corps for the left. Media Matters’ official mission is to correct misinformation. Its actual operation is to conduct character assassinations on behalf of the left. Its operating principle is a paranoid obsession with a vast right-wing conspiracy which justifies the creation of a vast left-wing conspiracy to counter it.