Drudge: "When It Rains..."

 

When it rains, it pours. What an apt metaphor for this week - and this day!

Today is the 30th anniversary of my marriage to Thorney Lieberman. B"H, I have spent more years with him than without. He is the home of my soul, what else can I say?

Today is also the anniversary of the modern re-establishment of Israel (on the goyishe calendar) and our Israeli daughter's first day back in America since she made aliyah last summer. AND {it pours} - tonight begins the two-day festival of Shavuot, the anniversary of the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people.

My cup overflows.

*  *  *

On such a day, I need to be making domestic preparations of all sorts. You'll have to forgive me, there's no way I can keep up the cascade of current events in the news! All of a sudden, Obama's government is flooded with a multitude of scandals and it's staggering to see. Even the WashPost "fact checker" is giving El Presidente four Pinocchios ... and Piers Morgan is tweeting as follows:

"Benghazi, IRS, AP - doesn't add up to much 'transparency' does it, Mr President? 

 

I'm so dizzy this morning I don't even know if I've blogged the AP story yet! It came out yesterday evening -- while I was tracking the progress of an international flight with great interest (and Barack Obama was fundraising in Greenwich Village).

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation...

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records.

 

Veteran White House reporter Keith Koffler writes:

This could well be the worst kind of government intimidation of the press and threat to the First Amendment we have seen in a very long time.

 

Looks like the people who GET PAID to report the news to the public suddenly have a New, Improved and Personalized reason to do just that.  Good.  Just when I need to take a few days off ...

You folks go ahead; I'll catch up at some point. Feel free to use the comments section to keep in touch in my absence.

And last but not least, I just want to say Chag Sameach to the family of Jews! Here's a Shavuot teaching from a letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ZT"L :

.... Our Sages tell us that when Moshe was about to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, he told them of G-d's promise to give the Torah to His beloved people following their liberation from bondage. At once they asked when would that happy day be, and Moshe replied that it would be fifty days later. Every day the children of Israel counted: One day is gone, two days, three, and so on, and eagerly looked forward to the fiftieth day. The children of Israel understood that there could be no real freedom -- freedom from any fear of oppression by others, and freedom from one's own evil inclinations -- except through laws of justice and righteousness, which only the Creator of all mankind could make, because He knows best what is good for them. It is not surprising, therefore, that they were so eager to receive the Divine Torah, containing those wonderful laws to guide them and all the world.

Let us also remember that we cannot be truly free men, nor would we be worthy of such freedom, unless we take upon ourselves to observe and do all that G-d commanded us in His holy Torah. Like our ancestors at Mount Sinai, we also must proclaim: Naaseh vnishmah -- we will do and learn; and only then will we have lasting freedom.

 

Happy Days, here again? Only if we use our Gd-given freedom for good. Let it be so... Over and out.

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Mazel tov and heartiest congratulations to you and Thorney, Yael! And Chag Sameach as well. Enjoy every minute of your daughter's visit. And RELAX. One thing certain in this uncertain world is that -- when you get back to blogging -- there'll still be news to blog about. L'chaim!

[Tom Glennon]

I echo Mannie's comment. Mazel tov to you and Thorney. May Gd continue to hold you and your family in the palm of His hand.

[Pheasant Hunting Kansas]

It's laughable to think that the very toadies who carried ObaMaos' water from the start would find themselves his targets. Were they really so delusional as to believe they would be exempt from his scrutiny? There is no honor among thieves.