Patriots Furious As Eyewitness Reveals How Obama Caused 2011 SEAL Massacre
Former President Obama has a lot of blood on his hands, but we never knew how many Americans died under his watch.
In 2011, a Chinook was brought down, killing 38 fighters in Afghanistan. The 38 men who died for our country were only in harm’s way because of a decision made by Barack Obama to change the rules of engagement. (via Circa).
Now, former Air Force Captain Joni Marquez is speaking out. She was part of the crew that was called to respond to the emergency situation.
Joni Marquez was aboard the AC-130 gunship that flew in to support the ground troops engaged in a firefight with insurgents. While flying into combat, the crew noticed scores of enemy combatants hiding along the ridge mixed in with known terrorists.
The gunship opened fire and killed six of the eight enemy combatants. Joni Marquez was operating the fire control center. After the dust settled, Capt. Marquez informed the ground commander of the two men left standing and requested orders to engage.
The ground commander denied her request. The AC-130 and crew were left stranded in the air unable to fire. They continued to monitor the location of the insurgents who retreated to a nearby village.
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From the village, the insurgents recruited more fighters and returned to the fight with a rocket launcher. They opened fire on the friendly Chinook helicopter, which crashed, killing 38 friendly fights. Thirty were American.
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Captain Marquez recounted the events in an interview. She told reporters that if her and her crew were allowed to open fire, they would have prevented the deaths of 30 Americans. The AC-130 was blocked from engaging, as a result of new rules of engagement established by Obama.
The former president changed the standard immediately upon taking office, despite his complete lack of combat experience. The two terrorists managed to escape, and recruit ten more fighters and a rocket launcher.
Thankfully, we have elected a president who is actually concerned with the well-being of our troops. Obama took an academic approach to a war zone, and changed the rules, resulting
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Friends, I get the feeling that much of the original content of articles like this IMPORTANT one is somehow lost or purposely redacted !! And that makes me angry, so I encourage you all to go back to the original location or just sign on to get Natural News delivered right to your own personal computer ! IMHO, it's only a matter of time before the 'Shadow Gov't,' and the stinking Left-Socialist goofs, tear it down, or force it to close ! Another terrible shame !
Friends, I keep beating my drum about, Revelation, Chapter 13, and it's not very long, but it has to do with the Dragon [Satan] who gave power to the "Beast" to make war on the Saints.... but the Lamb [Christ] would eventually beat the Beast and the Dragon, etc.
www.thepropheticyears.com/The book of Revelation/Revelation chap 13...
Futurist commentary on Revelation chapter 13, by Don Koenig - A Beast comes out of the sea with ten horns and a second Beast comes from the land with two horns
The Beast from the Sea. John's use of I saw (vv. 1, 2) marks a return to the first-person narrative style that ....
----- So..... on one hand, one human on earth can buy, or sell anything, including food and supplies, all over the world. But in the next chapter... 14. Everyone who took the "Mark of the Beast" on their Right hand or on their fore head, will receive the wrath of God Almighty !!
So here is the picture, folks, we have a choice --- to follow the Lamb -- Jesus Christ, who PROMISES the resurrection if we die or get killed, serving Him. Or, we give in to Satan for a very temporary life filled with guilt, misery and plagues, etc., and then end up in hell, anyway ! What a choice, huh ???
Well, for most combat Veterans now days, we certainly understand life and death, and we also know that right now --- We are "Soldier of Christ" and in a war, right now ! One of our primary battle orders is to reach out and touch someone with the message of the "Gospel of Salvation," that explain exactly what and why Jesus, our dear Lord and Savior, did to get all of our sins forgiven, for ever, and then gain the Right to go to heaven ! You see, the dirty old devil just cannot do that. He can only misled you, and all the nations on earth.
Now... If you pray to Father God, and ask Him for the Holy Spirit, He Will send the H.S. directly to you, and you can confess all your sins that you can remember [and that will be good enough], so that you NOW know and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and ask Him to 'come into your heart, and the Holy Spirit, too.' And then, end the prayer, "In Jesus' name. Amen."
Then start reading the Gospel accounts: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, plus the book of Romans.... and all of that will start you on your way to being a Christian. But in the years to come, and even in heaven, we will continue to study and learn.... and it just gets better and better !!
I learned this about 20 years ago, and have been going and going, ever since, ever learning and SHARING this Truth of the KJV Bible ! Now, here is a great place to buy a special, learning Bible that will help you better understand the "OLD ENGLISH" from the years of Shakespeare.... 1610- 1611. Visit: biblefortoday.org ---for the DEFINED KJV Bible ! It will really help explain many things and cut thru all the red tape.
My email address is: tschuckman@aol.com
So email me and we can talk and visit.
Warm Regards,
Tom Schuckman
After pushing vaccines for depopulation, Bill Gates now warns that bioterrorism might kill 30 million more
(Natural News) When most people hear the name “Bill Gates,” they think of Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. However, the not-so-hidden agenda that lies behind the Gates Foundation is often glossed over, especially by the mainstream media. Gates and his foundation have consistently come under fire for their aspirations of depopulation, and now the same man who essentially has made it a goal to eliminate humans is lecturing the rest of us about bioterrorism?
Recently, the UK’s Daily Mail reported that Bill Gates believes a biological terror attack is on the horizon, and that it could take out some 30 million people in the blink of an eye. According to Gates, biotechnology has grown so advanced that bio-warfare could easily become more lethal than a nuclear strike. As an example, he stated that terrorists could bring new life to a disease like smallpox — which is a deadly pathogen that almost no one has immunity for at this point in time.
Gates echoed similar sentiments in Munich earlier this year, where he told world leaders that a pandemic could end millions of lives, and declared that it was a distinct possibility within the next 10 or 15 years.
As per the Daily Mail, Gates said, “When you are thinking about things that could cause in excess of 10 million deaths, even something tragic like a nuclear weapons incident wouldn’t get to that level. So the greatest risk is from a natural epidemic or an intentionally caused infection bioterrorism events.”
“Whether the next epidemic is unleashed by a quirk of nature or the hand of terrorist, scientists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. So the world does need to think about this,” he reportedly added.
“It seems incredibly ironic that Bill Gates, the man who deliberate seeks to eliminate billions of humans from the planet, is concerned that bioterrorism might kill 30 million more,” replied science innovator Mike Adams, who founded and runs an environmental science lab known as CWC Labs. “The most likely vector that will be chosen by globalists for rapid human depopulation is the release of a deadly, weaponized viral strain for the simple reason that it spreads on its own and can’t be tracked back to any particular origin,” Adams warned.
The irony of Bill Gates’ faux concern for the human race is almost laughable. India, however, may not find it so funny. Earlier this year, India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization announced that it would be ending their relationship with Gates Foundation after it was revealed that the vaccines the foundation had been promoting were doing irreparable harm to young Indian girls — and that the “campaigns” were actually trials of the vaccines. Natural News writer Ethan Huff reports that independent journalists have found that these vaccine trials in India led to thousands of injuries and deaths.
Previously, in 2015, reports also revealed that courts in India were launching lawsuits targeted at the Gates Foundation. The Supreme Courts of India began an investigation following revelations about the organization’s questionable actions abroad — such as the illicit testing of vaccines like Gardasil and Ceravix. These experiments were conducted on children, which only makes the situation even more disturbing.
Between the trials of Ceravix and Gardasil, some 30,000 children were experimented on. Many of these children were from rural areas in India, where even the parents were often illiterate and most likely not able to understand what they were consenting to. Reports say in many cases, the consent forms may have even been forged.
The Gates Foundation, along with the WHO and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, were condemned in a petition which claimed that the organizations were “criminally negligent” for taking advantage of “vulnerable, uneducated and under-informed population [of] school administrators, students and their parents who were not provided informed consent or advised of potential adverse effects.” It’s clear that these groups took advantage of these people and their children and used them as guinea pigs.
Bill Gates has also come under fire for his personal statements regarding his support of global depopulation efforts and the value of human life. Not only has he stated that it would be “good” if they could reduce the population of the earth by 10 or 15 percent, he also reportedly stated that we need to differentiate between people who are useful and worth keeping and those who provide society “no benefit whatsoever.”
Make no mistake, Bill Gates has little concern for human lives; he just cares about what he can use them for. Sources: DailyMail.co.uk TrueActivist.com NaturalNews
Hello Friends, Why don't we all just GET USED TO the common truth that MOST politicians are LYING most of the time, and demand PROOF, every time they open their decayed mouths ? According to the KJV Bible, which we know to be ALL TRUE --- 2nd Timothy 3: 16, and Titus 1: 2., --- that from ancient times certain kinds of people, even entire countries and races of people had a distinct challenge with the truth ! I can think of a few racial groups that were mentioned back then -- that you all know about now -- Today ! Ha! Can you just imagine being in Jesus Christ's earthly sandals for a moment, please, with the power and ability to 'see into people's heart and minds ?' And in the book of Acts 5: 1., the Holy Spirit [and from now on let's call Him [masculine], the H.S., please...] was lied to by Ananias, and after the apostles accused him and his wife for lying, he fell down and died right there. So, LYING is a cardinal sin, for sure. We just can not lie to God.
Of course, you all are smart enough to discern that I was again, laying down the ground word/ foundation for the terrible state of extraordinary sin we have in the world now days. But let us also turn to 1st Timothy 4: 1, 'that in latter times... much evil will visit us...' 1 Timothy 4 KJV - Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that ...
1 Timothy 4 King James Version (KJV) 4 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits ...
Matthew Henry Commentary 4:1-5 The Holy Spirit, both in the Old and the New Testament, spoke of
Also, 1st Timothy 6: 10, 'it is the Love of money, that is the root of all evil !' There is NOTHING WRONG with money ! We need it to pay our bills every week and month !! And so many totally IGNORANT people get that point wrong, because they never were raised to read and study the Bible ! What a shame.
However, the book of Proverbs, etc., encourages all of us Christians to work hard with our hands to earn MONEY to pay our bills, also to store up extra money, food, water, etc., for emergencies ! But it is the Governments of the world that want to control us by forbidding us to save some food and money on the side.
Regardless of how the Obama administration described their nuclear deal with Iran, it increasingly looks like history will judge the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as being as bad as or worse than the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea.
Long before Donald Trump allowed—temporarily—strategist and former Breitbart editor Stephen Bannon onto the National Security Council, President Obama ensconced Ben Rhodes on the council to coordinate spin and media strategy. Rhodes famously created an echo chamber to downplay or deny weaknesses in the agreement.
Two new revelations highlight just how dishonest senior Obama administration officials—especially Secretary of State John Kerry and his immediate staff—were in their handling of Iran.
First, a relatively minor revelation: Analyst Omri Ceren, whose granular analysis of U.S. and Iranian statements and agreements with regard to the Iranian nuclear deal remains a daily must-read, highlights the following statement from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, quoting the JCPOA in order to allege U.S. violation:
Senior Government Officials of the E3/EU+3 and Iran will make every effort to support the successful implementation of this JCPOA, including in their public statements.
A footnote clarified that this applied to senior U.S. administration officials.
There were so many flaws with the JCPOA that this one didn’t really receive the attention it should have. In effect, Kerry agreed to spin the JCPOA. In an Orwellian twist, pointing out Iranian violations of the JCPOA becomes a violation itself.
It is deeply ironic that, in an era when politicians of both parties complain about “fake news,” Congress endorsed an agreement that mandated falsities. The only silver-lining to the objection of Zarif is that “make every effort” is ill-defined and is not infinite. Let us hope that, however Obama and Kerry interpreted the passage, Trump and Tillerson embrace the notion that “every effort” does not extend to lying, as Zarif seems to suggest it should.
As damaging as the JCPOA was—it completely reversed the precedent established by the dismantling of South Africa and Libya’s nuclear programs and left Iran with more centrifuges than Pakistan had when it built not a nuclear weapon but an entire arsenal—equally destructive was the Obama administration’s willingness to unravel investigations into Iran’s secret procurement program which seems to have continued even after the JCPOA was signed. Josh Meyer at Politico has the scoop:
In reality, some of [those against whom the Obama administration dropped charges] were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. As part of the deal, U.S. officials even dropped their demand for $10 million that a jury said the aerospace engineer illegally received from Tehran.
And in a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives. The administration didn’t disclose their names or what they were accused of doing, noting only in an unattributed, 152-word statement about the swap that the U.S. “also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.” Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran. A fifth, Amin Ravan, was charged with smuggling U.S. military antennas to Hong Kong and Singapore for use in Iran. U.S. authorities also believe he was part of a procurement network providing Iran with high-tech components for an especially deadly type of IED used by Shiite militias to kill hundreds of American troops in Iraq.
The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China. That included hundreds of U.S.-made sensors for the uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran whose progress had prompted the nuclear deal talks in the first place.
All of this was done not only to ransom U.S. hostages—something about which subsequent revelations show two State Department officials outright lied in Congressional testimony before the Financial Services Committee—but to protect the fiction that the deal was working and relations were on the mend. In short, Secretary of State John Kerry and his aides sought to pervert justice and bury facts to preserve a political fiction regardless of the damage that the reality of Iran’s actions could inflict on the region and U.S. national security.
Over the last half-century, intelligence politicization most frequently occurs in support of high-profile diplomacy when politicians engage in initiatives which they believe too important to fail. Never before, however, has an administration or a secretary of state agreed to self-censor and mislead.
It is wrong to criminalize policy debate as some politicians and pundits tried to do during the Bush administration but, given that the JCPOA applies just as much to the Trump administration as it did to Obama, it is long past time for Congress to demand the testimony John Kerry, his chief of staff and top aides, in order to understand just what risks they were willing to inflict on the United States of America for what appears increasingly to be a Potemkin agreement.
Join us—you'll be in good company. Everyone worth reading is reading (and writing for) COMMENTARY:
“ There’s an enormous amount of shouting in the wild west of conservative media. That has its place, and is often a sign of the energy on the right. But amidst the cacophony there’s a special need for serious, considered, and compelling argument, presented in the hope of persuading, not just punishing. This is where COMMENTARY has always shined, perhaps more now than ever before. It aims to tackle the best arguments of its intellectual opponents, not just the easiest targets. It’s a journal I’ve read for nearly 30 years and I can’t think of a time when I’ve valued it more. „
Jonah Goldberg
“ There is more commentary in the world than ever before—whether in print, on the air, or on the Internet. But there is still a dearth of serious, informed commentary that reports, analyzes, and argues without ever stooping to name-calling or vitriol. If you further narrow down the segment of the commentariat that looks at the world from a conservative and Jewish perspective—well, you’re left with only one choice. The magazine you are now reading. COMMENTARY has changed over the years—for instance, it now publishes this blog—but one thing that has not changed is its steadfast commitment to providing the best analysis from the most informed writers of the most important ideas in the world, all written in clear prose that appeals to a general audience. There is nothing else like it. Never has been, never will be. „
Max Boot
“ Every month in print, and every day online, COMMENTARY somehow manages to pull off a dazzling balancing act: intellectual but unpretentious, serious but never boring, timely but not fleeting. On the leading questions of the day, it offers fresh and unfamiliar insights. And on the emerging questions that will dominate the years to come, it often sees things first and clearest. It is simply indispensable. „
Yuval Levin
“ In 1975 the Economist said of COMMENTARY: “The world's best magazine?” Take away the question mark and that statement still stands, thirty-eight years later. It's still the magazine America's liberals dread most, and the one America's enemies can't afford to ignore. It's the point of the conservative spear in the never-ending fight against the insanity of the left, whether it's in foreign policy or economic policy, social and cultural issues, or the arts—and no one does a better job standing up for Western culture and America's interests and those of its allies, including Israel. In fact, surviving the next three years—the Obama administration home stretch—and building the foundations for an American resurgence afterward will be impossible without reading COMMENTARY in print and online. „
Arthur Herman
“ For decades, COMMENTARY has opened its pages to the most serious uncompromising defense of the American creed—exemplar of ordered liberty at home, pillar of the free world abroad—in an era when it has been most under attack. From the exceptionally influential manifestoes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick to today's counterattack against the empowered advocates of the entitlement state and of American decline, COMMENTARY remains what it has been for more than a generation: fearless, informative, indispensable. „
Charles Krauthammer
“ COMMENTARY isn’t just an important magazine. It’s an indispensable one. It’s been indispensable for half a century, and it is today. It’s indispensable for understanding the moment we live in, and it’s indispensable for laying out a path forward. The challenges we confront are great, but COMMENTARY is used to facing grave challenges without fearful cowering or wishful thinking. So we need COMMENTARY today as much as we ever have, and we need it to be as strong as it’s ever been. „
William Kristol
“ COMMENTARY’s writing is predictably engaging and edgy, but its content is anything but homogeneous. Center-right perspectives characterize contributions, but not predictably so. Jewish affairs are thematic, but not always. Controversies of the day are the usual subjects, yet offered only with reflection well apart from the frenzied 24/7 news cycle. Intellectual honesty and analytical rigor characterize COMMENTARY and that is why even its political critics concede that they are still enlightened by the very arguments they often oppose. „
Victor Davis Hanson
“ COMMENTARY is an indispensable read on the Arab Spring, the Afghan war, the future of American conservatism, and all the other crazy stuff out there. But you already knew that. What I really love about it is that it’s a full-service operation, and its back-of-the-book guys—the fellows who write about music, literature, and all the things that make life worth living as the world goes to hell—are the best in the business. There is an observation in a Terry Teachout piece on the wonderful singer Nancy LaMott about “Moon River” that has stayed with me for almost two decades. I fished it out from the back of my mind to impress a gal at a Goldwater Institute reception only the other day, and it worked a treat. So thank you, COMMENTARY! Likewise, my differences with the arts’n’culture crew unsettle me far more than the geopolitical ones: reasonable people can disagree on how large a nuclear arsenal those wacky mullahs should be permitted to own, but I’m still agog at the great Andrew Ferguson’s mystifying praise for the New York Times obituaries page a couple of issues back. That’s COMMENTARY for you—provocative to the end, on matters large and small. In these turbulent and dismaying times, we can all use a huckleberry friend waiting round the bend, in the mailbox each month and on the computer screen every morning. For any journal of opinion, as “Moon River” teaches us, there’s such a lot of world to see. COMMENTARY sees most of it with piercing clarity: it can’t know all the answers, but it asks all the right questions, and with great farsightedness. It deserves your wholehearted support. „
Mark Steyn
“ COMMENTARY has played an invaluable role in American political discourse for decades, offering thoughtful analysis on issues rather than sound bites or bumper stickers. Especially when it comes to U.S. foreign and defense policy, COMMENTARY has time and time again been ahead of the crowd, anticipating trends and developments that others react to only after the fact. I can't imagine not being a COMMENTARY subscriber. „
John Bolton
“ In the midst of today’s political rancor, COMMENTARY Magazine provides a rare venue for thoughtful discussion. COMMENTARY’s talented writers provide insightful analysis of foreign affairs, domestic policy, and the politics of the day. COMMENTARY is a treasure not only for conservatives, but for anyone looking for in-depth exploration of the issues that influence America’s public dialogue and shape the nation’s future. „
Karl Rove
“ It's notorious, and true, that government officials hardly read anything. Memos, sure; nowadays, emails and tweets as well. But magazines? People barely have time to eat lunch or see their kids, so how can an intellectual monthly affect public affairs? The question is a good one. How did COMMENTARY do it? The answer is that officials, like all citizens following American foreign policy, need a way to understand the world around them. When prevailing theories fail, when conventional wisdom is clearly at variance with what they see before their eyes, the outcome for senators and congressmen and White House officials is what the shrinks call cognitive dissonance. They may say one thing but believe another, or simply be unable to square previous beliefs and policies with the clear effects of U.S. conduct. They've lost the ability to explain the world. And then came COMMENTARY, offering month after month of piercing, bracing analysis—and value judgments of right and wrong, and clear writing about American gains and losses. Here was an insistence on looking reality in the face. Here was plain argument, seeking no quarter intellectually and giving none. And it mattered. It shamed some people, and emboldened others; COMMENTARY demanded that we conform policy to the opportunities and dangers that really faced America. In years of confusion and obfuscation, that striking clarity changed policies, and changed American conduct, because it changed the way we understood the world. „
Elliott Abrams
“ For more than 60 years, COMMENTARY has been a go-to source on matters of the greatest importance to our nation and our civilization. Today, its full-throated defense of the United States and freedom is as eloquent as it was a half-century ago, and no less urgent. Issues of the day will change, news cycles come and go, but COMMENTARY remains an indispensable authority in the battle of ideas that help to shape our world. Its continued success is both an indication, and source, of the country’s intellectual health. „
Donald Rumsfeld
“ COMMENTARY is America's most important monthly journal of ideas, period. For nearly seven decades it has published the best and most exciting writing from the most important thinkers: Saul Bellow and Lionel Trilling; Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick; Paul Johnson and Ruth Wisse; Cynthia Ozick and—of course—Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Is there anything remotely like it? No. It is the lamp by which America, and Israel, and the Jewish people, may find their way to safety. I'm proud to be published in its pages. „
Bret Stephens
“ Irving Kristol once called COMMENTARY the most influential magazine in Jewish history. Certainly, no publication had a greater influence on me as I evolved from adolescent reader (arguing over its articles with my father and older brother) into a “frequent contributor” who made it my intellectual home. The magazine did not exploit American freedom to escape from civilizing duty but rather activated the intertwined responsibilities of citizens and members of a group. American Jewry can boast of many contributions to the welfare of this country and the Jewish people, but few as fortifying as COMMENTARY. „
Ruth R. Wisse
“ Edward Shils noted that there are four means of education in the modern world: the classroom, bookstores (especially used-bookstores), the conversation of intelligent friends, and intellectual magazines. For me intellectual magazines were more important than any of the other three, and no magazine among them more so than COMMENTARY. I first happened on COMMENTARY as a student browsing in the University of Chicago Bookstore in 1957. I have not missed an issue since. The magazine spoke to my intellectual interests and passions, and still does. As a reader and as a writer, I should be lost without it. „
Joseph Epstein
“ Why does COMMENTARY matter? Since 1945, no other monthly magazine has so consistently published serious, provocative argument and analysis. No other monthly magazine has viewed America and the world through such a wide angle, encompassing economics, politics, society, culture, religion, and diplomacy. No other monthly magazine has published such a celebrated and wide-ranging list of editors and contributors. Cerebral, critical, and committed, the point of view found in its pages is as unique as it is formidable. And in a world of Iranian nukes, rising anti-Semitism, radical Islam, American disarmament, bipartisan neo-isolationism, and disintegrating institutions, reading COMMENTARY is more than a pleasure. It is a necessity. „
Matthew Continetti
“ COMMENTARY has long been an unmissable landmark on the American intellectual landscape. These days it shapes debate, propels argument, and explains society with renewed vigor and force. It is one of the small group of essential reads for anybody engaged in politics, Judaism, foreign policy, national manners, and morals. „
David Brooks
“ Anyone looking for a definitive exposition of a significant historical moment—whether UC Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, say, or the battles over "general education" at Harvard—has at his fingertips an inestimable gift: COMMENTARY's archives, which contain countless gems of reporting and analysis. Today's generation of COMMENTARY writers is building an equally invaluable store of knowledge for future researchers and scholars. „
Heather Mac Donald
“ I first subscribed to COMMENTARY in 1973, as a recovering liberal who had invested four years of my young life in writing speeches for a constellation of McGovernite candidates and office-holders. Living in Berkeley at the time, I relished COMMENTARY as a guilty pleasure, feeling grateful that the magazine arrived each month discreetly disguised in a plain, brown wrapper that concealed its suspiciously neo-conservative content. In the militantly leftist community in which I functioned forty years ago, receiving regular monthly installments of the most degrading porn would have produced far less embarrassment than my growing devotion to the persuasive prose of Norman Podhoretz and Co. Yes, my personal journey from left to right-center involved the usual biographical factors, including the three P’s: paychecks, parenthood, and prayer. Paychecks, because they arrived with shocking subtractions in the form of onerous and incomprehensible taxes; parenthood, because responsibility for a new generation forced a longer-term perspective; and prayer, because my own growing Jewish observance led to the conclusion that my “idealistic” ’60s generation, with all its narcissism and preening self-regard, might not provide life’s ultimate answers after all. Fortunately for me, reading COMMENTARY with near-religious regularity helped to organize my onrushing insights and experience into a more coherent world view. In a dark time in our nation’s history, while surviving (temporarily) in the most unhinged corner of the continent, this incomparable publication persuaded me that I wasn’t alone. „
Michael Medved
“ Just as one begins to despair of hearing the strong voice of sanity and courage, leavened with charm and good humor, in our modern polity, COMMENTARY arrives, and once a month one can be reminded that there are indeed some clear-sighted and articulate people who seem actively to enjoy the battle for truth. „
Andrew Roberts
“ In a time of passion, COMMENTARY champions reason. Against lies, COMMENTARY speaks for truth. Confronting those who would doom to death the Jewish people, COMMENTARY is a magnificent continuing achievement of American Jewish life. „
David Frum
“ COMMENTARY has become my new go-to website for news analysis because it is measured, substantive, thoughtful, and written for news consumers of all shapes and sizes. When juggling all the issues of the day and thinking them through, I find myself going back to COMMENTARY again and again to see if there’s anything more that can help me add the ingredients needed to finalize an argument. I like the mix of foreign policy and national political news, as well as the discussions about America’s place in the world and what it should be. I’m a print subscriber and a frequent website visitor, and I follow all of the writers on Twitter. Thank you, COMMENTARY, for providing such consistently helpful content. „
Dana Perino
Subscribing to COMMENTARY gives you full access to every article, every issue, every podcast—the latest stories as well as over 70 years of archives, the best that has been thought and written since 1945.
Join the intellectual club, today.
Regardless of whether you support or oppose a new law allowing Israel to bar entry to prominent supporters of anti-Israeli boycotts, one outcome was eminently predictable: Israel would lack the guts to enforce it even when doing so was most justified. That was amply proven by Wednesday’s decision to grant a one-year work visa to Human Rights Watch researcher Omar Shakir. By this decision, Israel eviscerated the one crucial point the law got right, despite the many it got wrong: You cannot wage an effective war on the BDS movement while giving the people behind it a pass. As the old truism goes, people are policy.
Shakir is the epitome of someone who should have been denied entry, and his case exemplifies why the law’s basic assumption–that boycotters must be targeted personally–is 100 percent correct. He has given lectures on college campuses in which he accused Israel of being an apartheid state, advocated anti-Israel boycotts, compared Zionism to “Afrikaner nationalism,” rejected a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the grounds that it would “institutionalize injustice,” and called for ending Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. His resume also includes a stint as a legal fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that provides legal assistance and training to BDS activists and files war crimes suits against Israeli defense officials. Nor would discovering all this require any great research skills on the part of government officials; it’s all in a handy memo, complete with links, that NGO Monitor published in December.
Yet in his new role as HRW’s “Israel and Palestine director,” Shakir is supposed to oversee the production of unbiased, objective reports about human rights violations in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Needless to say, the very idea is fatuous; when someone has already made up his mind that Zionism is racism, Israel practices apartheid and a Jewish state has no right to exist, expecting him to produce unbiased research on this subject is like expecting the head of the Ku Klux Klan to preside fairly over the trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Instead, Shakir will spend his year here producing reports full of vicious anti-Israel slurs. Thanks to the “halo effect” enjoyed by all human rights organizations, those findings will be treated as credible by numerous well-meaning people overseas and will further undermine Israel in the international arena.
In short, allowing Shakir to take up his post will do Israel incalculable harm. Yet, instead of doing the minimum research required to justify barring him as an individual, the border control authorities made a hasty decision in February to deny him a visa on the sweeping grounds that HRW is an anti-Israel organization. Clearly, accusing an entire organization of being anti-Israel is far harder to justify, even if it happens to be true (which, in HRW’s case, I believe it is). Doing so without exhaustive research and intensive preparation for the inevitable diplomatic backlash was insane.
The predictable result was that the State Department exerted pressure on HRW’s behalf since it’s an American organization. And then, instead of retreating to the narrower and more easily defensible position of barring Shakir on the grounds of his clear unfitness for his post, Israel capitulated completely. Thus instead of HRW being justly embarrassed at having chosen someone so patently unqualified as its “Israel and Palestine director,” boycott advocates were handed a totally unjustified and very public victory.
One might think this is simply a case of bureaucratic ineptitude that has nothing to do with the new law, especially since Shakir’s visa was initially denied before the new law even passed. But the new law actually makes such damaging outcomes even more likely. Why? Because it differs from the old law, which also allowed prominent boycott advocates to be denied entry, in one respect only: Instead of border control officials needing the interior minister’s permission to bar a prominent boycotter, they can now do so on their own authority, unless the government intervenes.
In other words, under the old law, visas were theoretically denied only in cases where the government had already decided it was prepared to stand behind the denial. By handing this authority over to relatively low-level officials, the new law makes it even more likely that the government will end up beating humiliating retreats from eminently reasonable decisions simply because they were made without the necessary research and preparation.
In all other respects, the new law is identical to the old. Like the old one, it applies only to the most prominent boycott advocates. Consequently, it accomplishes nothing except to further increase the likelihood of bureaucratic snafus, while also producing a lot of unfavorable publicity, upsetting even many of the country’s prominent defenders, giving extra ammunition to people who seek to tar Israel as anti-democratic, and creating unwarranted anxiety among well-meaning people who now fear being denied entry on grounds that aren’t even actionable under the law, such as a personal refusal to buy settlement products.
If Israel is to fight the BDS movement effectively, anti-Israel activists like Shakir must be called out as publicly as possible instead of being allowed to pose as objective researchers whose anti-Israel screeds should be considered credible. And barring them from entering the country, precisely because it’s such a high-profile step, can be an effective way of doing so. But if Shakir’s case is any example, the new law will at best contribute nothing to this essential effort, and, at worst, may even end up hindering it.
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“ There’s an enormous amount of shouting in the wild west of conservative media. That has its place, and is often a sign of the energy on the right. But amidst the cacophony there’s a special need for serious, considered, and compelling argument, presented in the hope of persuading, not just punishing. This is where COMMENTARY has always shined, perhaps more now than ever before. It aims to tackle the best arguments of its intellectual opponents, not just the easiest targets. It’s a journal I’ve read for nearly 30 years and I can’t think of a time when I’ve valued it more. „
Jonah Goldberg
“ There is more commentary in the world than ever before—whether in print, on the air, or on the Internet. But there is still a dearth of serious, informed commentary that reports, analyzes, and argues without ever stooping to name-calling or vitriol. If you further narrow down the segment of the commentariat that looks at the world from a conservative and Jewish perspective—well, you’re left with only one choice. The magazine you are now reading. COMMENTARY has changed over the years—for instance, it now publishes this blog—but one thing that has not changed is its steadfast commitment to providing the best analysis from the most informed writers of the most important ideas in the world, all written in clear prose that appeals to a general audience. There is nothing else like it. Never has been, never will be. „
Max Boot
“ Every month in print, and every day online, COMMENTARY somehow manages to pull off a dazzling balancing act: intellectual but unpretentious, serious but never boring, timely but not fleeting. On the leading questions of the day, it offers fresh and unfamiliar insights. And on the emerging questions that will dominate the years to come, it often sees things first and clearest. It is simply indispensable. „
Yuval Levin
“ In 1975 the Economist said of COMMENTARY: “The world's best magazine?” Take away the question mark and that statement still stands, thirty-eight years later. It's still the magazine America's liberals dread most, and the one America's enemies can't afford to ignore. It's the point of the conservative spear in the never-ending fight against the insanity of the left, whether it's in foreign policy or economic policy, social and cultural issues, or the arts—and no one does a better job standing up for Western culture and America's interests and those of its allies, including Israel. In fact, surviving the next three years—the Obama administration home stretch—and building the foundations for an American resurgence afterward will be impossible without reading COMMENTARY in print and online. „
Arthur Herman
“ For decades, COMMENTARY has opened its pages to the most serious uncompromising defense of the American creed—exemplar of ordered liberty at home, pillar of the free world abroad—in an era when it has been most under attack. From the exceptionally influential manifestoes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick to today's counterattack against the empowered advocates of the entitlement state and of American decline, COMMENTARY remains what it has been for more than a generation: fearless, informative, indispensable. „
Charles Krauthammer
“ COMMENTARY isn’t just an important magazine. It’s an indispensable one. It’s been indispensable for half a century, and it is today. It’s indispensable for understanding the moment we live in, and it’s indispensable for laying out a path forward. The challenges we confront are great, but COMMENTARY is used to facing grave challenges without fearful cowering or wishful thinking. So we need COMMENTARY today as much as we ever have, and we need it to be as strong as it’s ever been. „
William Kristol
“ COMMENTARY’s writing is predictably engaging and edgy, but its content is anything but homogeneous. Center-right perspectives characterize contributions, but not predictably so. Jewish affairs are thematic, but not always. Controversies of the day are the usual subjects, yet offered only with reflection well apart from the frenzied 24/7 news cycle. Intellectual honesty and analytical rigor characterize COMMENTARY and that is why even its political critics concede that they are still enlightened by the very arguments they often oppose. „
Victor Davis Hanson
“ COMMENTARY is an indispensable read on the Arab Spring, the Afghan war, the future of American conservatism, and all the other crazy stuff out there. But you already knew that. What I really love about it is that it’s a full-service operation, and its back-of-the-book guys—the fellows who write about music, literature, and all the things that make life worth living as the world goes to hell—are the best in the business. There is an observation in a Terry Teachout piece on the wonderful singer Nancy LaMott about “Moon River” that has stayed with me for almost two decades. I fished it out from the back of my mind to impress a gal at a Goldwater Institute reception only the other day, and it worked a treat. So thank you, COMMENTARY! Likewise, my differences with the arts’n’culture crew unsettle me far more than the geopolitical ones: reasonable people can disagree on how large a nuclear arsenal those wacky mullahs should be permitted to own, but I’m still agog at the great Andrew Ferguson’s mystifying praise for the New York Times obituaries page a couple of issues back. That’s COMMENTARY for you—provocative to the end, on matters large and small. In these turbulent and dismaying times, we can all use a huckleberry friend waiting round the bend, in the mailbox each month and on the computer screen every morning. For any journal of opinion, as “Moon River” teaches us, there’s such a lot of world to see. COMMENTARY sees most of it with piercing clarity: it can’t know all the answers, but it asks all the right questions, and with great farsightedness. It deserves your wholehearted support. „
Mark Steyn
“ COMMENTARY has played an invaluable role in American political discourse for decades, offering thoughtful analysis on issues rather than sound bites or bumper stickers. Especially when it comes to U.S. foreign and defense policy, COMMENTARY has time and time again been ahead of the crowd, anticipating trends and developments that others react to only after the fact. I can't imagine not being a COMMENTARY subscriber. „
John Bolton
“ In the midst of today’s political rancor, COMMENTARY Magazine provides a rare venue for thoughtful discussion. COMMENTARY’s talented writers provide insightful analysis of foreign affairs, domestic policy, and the politics of the day. COMMENTARY is a treasure not only for conservatives, but for anyone looking for in-depth exploration of the issues that influence America’s public dialogue and shape the nation’s future. „
Karl Rove
“ It's notorious, and true, that government officials hardly read anything. Memos, sure; nowadays, emails and tweets as well. But magazines? People barely have time to eat lunch or see their kids, so how can an intellectual monthly affect public affairs? The question is a good one. How did COMMENTARY do it? The answer is that officials, like all citizens following American foreign policy, need a way to understand the world around them. When prevailing theories fail, when conventional wisdom is clearly at variance with what they see before their eyes, the outcome for senators and congressmen and White House officials is what the shrinks call cognitive dissonance. They may say one thing but believe another, or simply be unable to square previous beliefs and policies with the clear effects of U.S. conduct. They've lost the ability to explain the world. And then came COMMENTARY, offering month after month of piercing, bracing analysis—and value judgments of right and wrong, and clear writing about American gains and losses. Here was an insistence on looking reality in the face. Here was plain argument, seeking no quarter intellectually and giving none. And it mattered. It shamed some people, and emboldened others; COMMENTARY demanded that we conform policy to the opportunities and dangers that really faced America. In years of confusion and obfuscation, that striking clarity changed policies, and changed American conduct, because it changed the way we understood the world. „
Elliott Abrams
“ For more than 60 years, COMMENTARY has been a go-to source on matters of the greatest importance to our nation and our civilization. Today, its full-throated defense of the United States and freedom is as eloquent as it was a half-century ago, and no less urgent. Issues of the day will change, news cycles come and go, but COMMENTARY remains an indispensable authority in the battle of ideas that help to shape our world. Its continued success is both an indication, and source, of the country’s intellectual health. „
Donald Rumsfeld
“ COMMENTARY is America's most important monthly journal of ideas, period. For nearly seven decades it has published the best and most exciting writing from the most important thinkers: Saul Bellow and Lionel Trilling; Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick; Paul Johnson and Ruth Wisse; Cynthia Ozick and—of course—Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Is there anything remotely like it? No. It is the lamp by which America, and Israel, and the Jewish people, may find their way to safety. I'm proud to be published in its pages. „
Bret Stephens
“ Irving Kristol once called COMMENTARY the most influential magazine in Jewish history. Certainly, no publication had a greater influence on me as I evolved from adolescent reader (arguing over its articles with my father and older brother) into a “frequent contributor” who made it my intellectual home. The magazine did not exploit American freedom to escape from civilizing duty but rather activated the intertwined responsibilities of citizens and members of a group. American Jewry can boast of many contributions to the welfare of this country and the Jewish people, but few as fortifying as COMMENTARY. „
Ruth R. Wisse
“ Edward Shils noted that there are four means of education in the modern world: the classroom, bookstores (especially used-bookstores), the conversation of intelligent friends, and intellectual magazines. For me intellectual magazines were more important than any of the other three, and no magazine among them more so than COMMENTARY. I first happened on COMMENTARY as a student browsing in the University of Chicago Bookstore in 1957. I have not missed an issue since. The magazine spoke to my intellectual interests and passions, and still does. As a reader and as a writer, I should be lost without it. „
Joseph Epstein
“ Why does COMMENTARY matter? Since 1945, no other monthly magazine has so consistently published serious, provocative argument and analysis. No other monthly magazine has viewed America and the world through such a wide angle, encompassing economics, politics, society, culture, religion, and diplomacy. No other monthly magazine has published such a celebrated and wide-ranging list of editors and contributors. Cerebral, critical, and committed, the point of view found in its pages is as unique as it is formidable. And in a world of Iranian nukes, rising anti-Semitism, radical Islam, American disarmament, bipartisan neo-isolationism, and disintegrating institutions, reading COMMENTARY is more than a pleasure. It is a necessity. „
Matthew Continetti
“ COMMENTARY has long been an unmissable landmark on the American intellectual landscape. These days it shapes debate, propels argument, and explains society with renewed vigor and force. It is one of the small group of essential reads for anybody engaged in politics, Judaism, foreign policy, national manners, and morals. „
David Brooks
“ Anyone looking for a definitive exposition of a significant historical moment—whether UC Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, say, or the battles over "general education" at Harvard—has at his fingertips an inestimable gift: COMMENTARY's archives, which contain countless gems of reporting and analysis. Today's generation of COMMENTARY writers is building an equally invaluable store of knowledge for future researchers and scholars. „
Heather Mac Donald
“ I first subscribed to COMMENTARY in 1973, as a recovering liberal who had invested four years of my young life in writing speeches for a constellation of McGovernite candidates and office-holders. Living in Berkeley at the time, I relished COMMENTARY as a guilty pleasure, feeling grateful that the magazine arrived each month discreetly disguised in a plain, brown wrapper that concealed its suspiciously neo-conservative content. In the militantly leftist community in which I functioned forty years ago, receiving regular monthly installments of the most degrading porn would have produced far less embarrassment than my growing devotion to the persuasive prose of Norman Podhoretz and Co. Yes, my personal journey from left to right-center involved the usual biographical factors, including the three P’s: paychecks, parenthood, and prayer. Paychecks, because they arrived with shocking subtractions in the form of onerous and incomprehensible taxes; parenthood, because responsibility for a new generation forced a longer-term perspective; and prayer, because my own growing Jewish observance led to the conclusion that my “idealistic” ’60s generation, with all its narcissism and preening self-regard, might not provide life’s ultimate answers after all. Fortunately for me, reading COMMENTARY with near-religious regularity helped to organize my onrushing insights and experience into a more coherent world view. In a dark time in our nation’s history, while surviving (temporarily) in the most unhinged corner of the continent, this incomparable publication persuaded me that I wasn’t alone. „
Michael Medved
“ Just as one begins to despair of hearing the strong voice of sanity and courage, leavened with charm and good humor, in our modern polity, COMMENTARY arrives, and once a month one can be reminded that there are indeed some clear-sighted and articulate people who seem actively to enjoy the battle for truth. „
Andrew Roberts
“ In a time of passion, COMMENTARY champions reason. Against lies, COMMENTARY speaks for truth. Confronting those who would doom to death the Jewish people, COMMENTARY is a magnificent continuing achievement of American Jewish life. „
David Frum
“ COMMENTARY has become my new go-to website for news analysis because it is measured, substantive, thoughtful, and written for news consumers of all shapes and sizes. When juggling all the issues of the day and thinking them through, I find myself going back to COMMENTARY again and again to see if there’s anything more that can help me add the ingredients needed to finalize an argument. I like the mix of foreign policy and national political news, as well as the discussions about America’s place in the world and what it should be. I’m a print subscriber and a frequent website visitor, and I follow all of the writers on Twitter. Thank you, COMMENTARY, for providing such consistently helpful content. „
Dana Perino
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One of the Best ways to help another human being is to show and share them the "Gospel of Jesus Christ," Mathew, Mark, Luke and John... plus the important book of Romans. After pouring a great concrete foundation, we can all move on and fill in the other parts, also deal with our private, insecurities, problems and disabilities. As we get older, we suffer more, sometimes. Let us all come together and share our private or general opinions and points of interest. "Jesus is Lord." -- "God cannot lie." --Titus 1: 2. -- "Iron sharpens Iron." --Proverbs 27: 17.
Tom Schuckman
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"Welcome Home"-- Combat VETERANS! ..from 'The Man in the Door.' According to the Bible-- only God can remedy the many problems and woes of the world. True Christians are admonished to put their faith and TRUST in the Lord, and NOT lean upon their own [human] understanding. -Proverbs 3:5.
The Incomparable King James Version
Showing basic facts and history on why the King James Version is the most accurate copy of God's Word.
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Serious study of the BIBLE clearly tells us that the LORD Jesus will come soon to Rapture up His true followers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Oo4HmvK2U
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