Wednesday AM ~ The Front Page Cover

 The Front Page Cover 
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
U.S.-Israel Alliance 
Won't Be Fixed Without Honesty
Jonathan Tobin
 
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"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
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 WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE 
In a culture that doesn’t flinch at grown women wearing ill-fitting yoga pants to travel on an airplane or adult men wearing tennis shoes to work in an office, what’s the point of “dressing up?” In a society where vulgarians are everywhere ascendant, what’s the point of being polite? And in a world where perfect strangers think nothing of calling adults, even their elders, only by their first names, what’s the point of courtesy? Being formal today is often seen as not just pointless but also priggish. So parents and others weary sentinels on the frontier between civilization and idiocracy often struggle with the “why” of keeping social order. In his commencement address to students at a California charter school, Prof. Harvey Mansfield provides the most powerful alternative to “because I said so.” And The Weekly Standard has made it available to you.  -Fox News 
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 HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE GETS PERSONAL IN PITCH 
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s unanimously passed 21st Century Cures measure would redirect spending and regulation in a bid to spur innovation in healthcare. While the measure is waiting on a final vote, the committee has a new video out to highlight the patients who are urging its passage. Watch here.
          [The American Conservative Union Foundation hosts a Capitol Hill forum today on the continuing Iran deal talks. Participants include: Senior Fellow KT McFarland, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and AEI scholar Michael Rubin. RSVP here for the11:30 a.m. event in the Cannon Caucus Room.]  
-Fox News 
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 HAIL, WEST VIRGINIA! 
Saturday marks the 152nd anniversary of West Virginia’s statehood. The 35th state is the only one born of the bloodshed of the Civil War, rending itself from the rest of Virginia when the mother state left the Union. Although incorrectly considered part of the South by the Census Bureau, West Virginia is very much Appalachian in nature, as reflected in the state motto: Montani Semper Liberi (“Mountaineers are Always Free”).  
-Fox News 
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 Signed, sealed, delivered -  This commitment to freedom is illustrated on the state seal, the most interesting part of which may be the most inconspicuous. A hat at the center of the two crossed rifles referred to as the “liberty cap” comes from ancient Rome, and was given to slaves when their owners granted them freedom. The liberty cap, called the Phrygian cap in ancient Rome, is also worn by the Magi that follow the star to the birth of Christ in most depictions, and is worn by the freedom statue at the top of the Capitol building in Washington. Any who celebrate the triumph of freedom over slavery ought to take a moment to observe West Virginia Day on Saturday.
          [For those who don’t know what a blessing it is to be a West Virginian, the indispensable Hoppy Kercheval has a brief meditation that is very much worth reading.]
  -Fox News 
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 Press is on to Pressure Supreme Court into Saving nObamacare  
(Roger Aronoff) ~ President nObama is once again telling lies about nObamacare while bullying the Supreme Court to decide in his administration’s favor inKing v. Burwell, a court case which will likely be decided this month and which has the potential to gut the law’s subsidies... On cue, the mainstream media have marshaled their forces in defense of nObama and his signature legislation. And the media, just like the President, have been peddling many of the same lies about this law at the expense of the health and welfare of average Americans. A recent health care poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, popular with many in the media, asked whether Congress should intervene on behalf of low-income persons who might lose their subsidies. Not surprisingly, six in ten responded, “Yes.” But that poll does not appear to have asked the deeper question of whether all three branches of the federal government should respect the law as written.
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 Terrorists and Criminals Yes, Trans Fats No  
(Deroy Murdock) ~ nObama’s tragicomic reign recently has taken several truly frightful turns. On his eagle-eyed watch, we now learn, easily preventable homicides actually occurred, and designated potential terrorists are manning the secure areas of U.S. airports... Meanwhile, nObama deployed the federal government’s ferocious power . . . against a food additive. For starters, nObama’s hands are soaked with the blood of  as many as 121 people who were murdered by illegal-alien criminal convicts after he failed to deport them and, instead, released them onto America’s streets. Thanks, nObama!        http://www.aim.org/guest-column/terrorists-and-criminals-yes-trans-fats-no/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email062215&utm_medium=email
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 UN Wants "Urgent Measures" to Control Guns  
(Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.) ~ Not to be outdone by Barack nObama and Hilly Clinton in calling for civilian disarmament, the United Nations is taking advantage of the Charleston shootings to join the chorus of confiscators... In a statement issued on June 19 by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (yes, that actually exists), committee chairwoman Mireille Fanon Mendes-France demanded that “urgent measures must be taken to prevent gun violence.” Making a point of distinguishing this crime for its effect on “the security of Afro-Americans,” the UN group sent their “heartfelt condolences to the people of the United States of America.” A United Nations group has called on the United States to take "urgent measures" to reduce gun violence. They have no rights to force our hands in gun violence.       http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/21102-un-wants-urgent-measures-to-control-guns-after-charleston-killings?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=37647fb605-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-37647fb605-289778381
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 300,000 Christians Gather Together To Combat The Antichrist Attack  
(Theodore Shoebat) ~ 300,000 Christians gathered together in Rome’s San Giovanni Square to combat the antichrist attack against Christianity throughout the West. They rallied against the evil homosexual agenda and the demonic system of abortion... You can never get rid of Christianity, nor the roots of Christian tradition that so keep together civilization. No matter how much the wicked governments succeed in establishing evil and diabolical laws, no matter how much the wicked think they are winning, there will always be Christians to be here to tell let them know that they will never extinguish the fire of Christianity. In the words of St. John of Damascus, “God is a fire consuming all evil.” (Orthodox Faith, 1.9, trans. Chase, Jr.) And so we, being images of God, must be lights that shine forth and dispel the darkness into pieces.        http://sonsoflibertymedia.com/2015/06/300000-christians-gather-together-to-combat-the-antichrist-attack-against-christianity/
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 New emails show Benghazi deception by Hilly Clinton, nObama  
(Stephen Dinan) ~ Congress released nearly 200 pages of newly uncovered emails involving former Secretary of State Hilly Rodham Clinton, raising questions Monday about whether the nObama administration and the Democratic presidential candidate herself were truthful when they said they turned over all of her email communications on Benghazi... Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the select House committee looking into the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya, demanded the State Department say whether it has the emails — a way of testing whether the administration withheld them against the wishes of the committee, or whether Mrs. Clinton never turned them over in the first place, contradicting her public statements.        http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/22/new-emails-reignite-hillary-clinton-email-scandal/
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 The Palestinians' Real Strategy  
(Khaled Abu Tomameh) ~ All signs indicate that the Palestinians are planning to step up their efforts to force Israel to comply with their demands. But as the Palestinians are not united, they are working on two fronts to achieve their goal... One party, headed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), believes that, with the help of the international community, Israel will be forced to fully withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including east Jerusalem, and accept the "right of return" for millions of refugees and their descendants to their former homes inside Israel. The second party, represented by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and several other terror groups, continues to reject any form of compromise, and insists that the only solution lies in the elimination of Israel. Unlike the first party, this one believes that direct or indirect negotiations with the "Zionist enemy" are a waste of time and that terrorism is the only means for the Palestinians to achieve their goal.
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 Ayatollah Khamenei Calling the Shots on the Nuclear Deal  
(Joseph Puder) ~ The end of June 2015 is when the 5+1 powers are supposed to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran.  With just a few weeks to go it appears that serious issues remain unresolved... Resolution of the outstanding issues depends on a few actors in this political drama. U.S. President Barack nObama desperately wants to conclude a deal, which he believes will be his primary legacy in foreign affairs. The second U.S. actor is the U.S. Congress, dominated by the Republican opposition, which wants to insure that the deal with Iran has teeth that will guarantee that Iran does not continue to violate agreements – as it has done all along. The Congressional leadership wants inspections – not “guided tours” by the Iranians, which include military facilities and interviews with Iranian scientists. Three figures are the main actors on the Iranian side: the decisive one however, and the final authority is the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is trying to achieve a consensus with the two others: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, whose election was approved by the Ayatollah Khamenei, and was given the mission to end the international sanctions, which have crippled the Iranian economy. His future rests on his ability to do so, and he, like President nObama, desperately wants a deal to be consummated.        http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/joseph-puder/ayatollah-khamenei-calling-the-shots-on-the-nuclear-deal/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3b4f269dac-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-3b4f269dac-156509103
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 The Left Is Eating Itself  
(Daniel Greenfield) ~ In the hot days of summer, the progressive revolution that took over cities and even the national government is frenziedly devouring itself... The media is pounding away at Hilly Clinton, not because it cares about her foundation’s dirty deals or the contents of her email server, but because it doesn’t trust her ideological commitment. If the media were sure of that, both stories would have been treated like Benghazi; mocked, ridiculed, falsely fact checked and then buried in a haunted Indian graveyard under the New York Times building at midnight.        http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/the-left-is-eating-itself/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3b4f269dac-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-3b4f269dac-156509103
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 Straying away from strength in numbers  
(Thomas Donnelly) ~ “God is on the side of the big battalions.” The historical record is opaque about whether it was Napoleon, Turenne, Voltaire, or indeed any identifiable Frenchman who made that statement, but, in this age of supposedly post-industrial warfare. He has apparently changed His mind... Equipped with an iPhone and GPS-guided munitions, God has broken the phalanx, emptied the battlefield, and super-empowered the individual. Mass—particularly the large military formations of the modern era: infantry divisions and corps, aircraft carrier battle groups, tactical air wings—has gone out of style. Ironically, the United States, which became history’s “sole superpower” by crushing Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and outlasting the Soviet Union, has become the leading exponent of strategic “agility” and operational “mobility”—or, anything except durability. The impulse has reached the level of farce in the campaign to roll back the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.  President nObama has repeatedly lamented the inability to formulate a “complete strategy” for the war, complaining that while ISIS forces are “nimble and they’re aggressive and they’re opportunistic,” his cumbersome coalition of US advisers, the vanishing Iraqi army, and Iranian-backed Shi’a militias is not.       http://www.aei.org/publication/straying-away-from-strength-in-numbers/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=062215
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U.S.-Israel Alliance 
Won't Be Fixed Without Honesty
Jonathan Tobin
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     (jewishworldreview.com) ~ The nObama administration isn't very happy about Michael Oren's new book.
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     The revelations in the memoir by the former Israeli ambassador to the United States aren't particularly shocking for anyone who has been following the news since January 2009. President nObama came into office with some set ideas about creating daylight between Israel and the United States and has followed with more than six years of quarrels and public animosity.
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     As John Podhoretz writes about the book in the July/August issue of COMMENTARY,"The sheer unfriendliness of the administration is startlingly present on nearly every one of his memoir's 374 pages of text—and runs far deeper than the problematic relationship between the president and Oren's boss, Benjamin Netanyahu."
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     But though Oren, a respected historian and no right-wing ideologue, tempers his account with paeans to the goodwill of some figures in the administration and stops well short of attributing to nObama any ill wishes about Israel's survival, the reaction to his book from Washington has been furious.
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     That rage and the willingness of some Israeli politicians to kowtow to the pretense that everything is awesome between the Jewish state and nObama won't fix the problem that Oren has illustrated. To the contrary, if the relationship is to be repaired in the coming years, it will require the kind of honesty Oren has displayed.
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     The official position of the administration about Oren's book is that his account doesn't reflect reality and that he is nothing more than a politician who is seeking to sell books. State Department Spokesman Dan Kirby, who made a fool of himself on his first day on the job by trying to claim that Secretary of State hanoi John Kerry had not reversed himself on the conditions for an Iran deal, called the book "absolutely inaccurate and false" without actually contradicting a single fact in it.
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     hanoi Kerry and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro similarly trashed Oren, claiming his account of nObama's hostility to Israel during last summer's war when the U.S. not only stopped arms shipments but also handed Hamas a victory by stopping American flights to Ben Gurion Airport was "imaginary."
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     Not satisfied with that, they demanded that Prime Minister Netanyahu disavow Oren's accounts of events. That Netanyahu refused to so even though Oren joined a different political party and didn't hesitate to criticize the prime minister, both in the book and in the campaign for the Knesset earlier this year, is very much to his credit.
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     Less honorable was the speed with which Oren's political ally, Kulanu Party head Moshe Kahlon, denounced the book and praised nObama. The same was true of Likud politician Gilad Erdan who rushed to attack Oren.
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     The motives for these denunciations are obvious. The president knows that the truth about his hostility to Israel is not only politically damaging but extremely ill timed. With the Iran nuclear agreement likely to be signed this summer, the administration wants to portray itself as a loyal friend to Israel in order to convince a skeptical Congress that this weak pact isn't a betrayal of the Jewish state.
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     On the other hand, unprincipled and opportunistic Israeli politicians like Kahlon and Erdan want to be viewed favorably in Washington because they think it gives them a leg up at home.
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     Is there an argument to be made for keeping quiet about the way nObama has sought, as Oren tells us, to downgrade the alliance? Might not Israel be better served by pretending that everything is okay while waiting and hoping for the election of a better ally next year? That's the instinct of many Israelis but they are mistaken. There may be times when silence is wise but given the nature of the threats to Israel and the extent of the damage done by nObama over the past years, now is the time for some truth.
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     The angry denials of tension by the Americans and the obsequious flattery of nObama by some Israelis might lead us to think that Oren is exaggerating things. But the former ambassador, whose even-handed account is highly critical of some decisions made by Netanyahu's government, merely wrote what everyone who follows the Middle East knows.
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     This administration came into office seeking to distance itself from Israel and has not missed an opportunity to ambush the Israelis and to tilt the diplomatic playing field in the direction of their foes.
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     There is also no secret about the fact that these efforts did nothing to advance the cause of peace or the interests of the U.S. or Israel. And that is why Oren's truth telling is so important at this moment in history.
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     nObama's hostility to Israel has deepened the conviction on the part of the Palestinians that they needn't compromise to make peace. Similarly, Iran has come to view the nObama administration as not only a soft touch in the nuclear negotiations but also not a stalwart ally to either Israel or the Arab nations that fear Tehran as much as Jerusalem does.
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     What has happened on nObama's watch has not merely created tension in the U.S.-Israel alliance, it has undermined the ability of the United States to be a force for stability or good in the Middle East.
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     Though, as Oren has made clear, the security relationship between the two countries remains strong, the perception that the U.S. no longer may have Israel's back at the United Nations or when it is under attack by terrorist foes like Hamas makes the already dim chances for peace even slimmer.
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     nObama may long, as he made clear in a recent speech, for a mythical Israel of the past but the more complex vibrant democracy that exists in reality is materially damaged by his efforts to isolate it.
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     Honesty about the problems he has created is the first step toward fixing them and re-establishing the united front between the two allies that is the prerequisite for stability in the Middle East.
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     That's a lesson that both American and Israeli politicians need to take to heart.
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