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Sept. 5, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: What does 'doing the right thing' entail?

Caroline B. Glick: The master strategist

Sept. 4, 2008

Ron Kampeas: Biden, Palin take lead in clash on Mideast issues

Bruce Dancis: With humor as their weapon, the Three Stooges took on Hitler

Sept. 3, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: Productive school years don't just happen

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Quick lamb stew serves up flavors of India

Sept. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Costly Advice

Caroline B. Glick: Calling Israel's bluff

JWisdom: Wandering in Wonder by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 29, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: 20/20 sightlessness

Caroline B. Glick: When history is not repeated

JWisdom: Blessed or Cursed: It's Really Up to You by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 28, 2008

Steve Lipman: A Comeback for the 'Jewish Jordan'

Jeffrey Weiss: Researcher reports 'intriguing' diabetes breakthrough

August 27, 2008

Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald: Removing the perfectionist's mask

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Nunn: Summer harvest linguine

JWisdom:: The Missing Link in Spiritual Life by Rabbi David Aaron

August 26, 2008

Yaffa Ganz: Grandma gets lessons in staying cool

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: The Dems' 'soft' jihadist

JWisdom:: Today: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Plague of indifference

August 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: A friend is bearing a silly grudge from a supposed wrong. What recourse do I have?

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

JWisdom:: The knowledge you need to overcome your insecurities by Malka Schulman

August 22, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Life's essential ingredient

Caroline B. Glick: Dominos anyone?

JWisdom:: Actually, Do Sweat the Small Stuff! by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 21, 2008

Today in Biblical History by Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Popularization of Kabbalah: 20 Menachem-Av 1558 CE

Jonathan Rosenblum: Lessons from the Beyond

JWisdom: : The Olympian within is rooting for you -- yes, you! –- to go for the gold

August 20, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Misleading Platform Platitudes

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Chicken Salad with Asian Dressing

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: America's Defense of the Jews --- Until WWII by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

August 19, 2008

Dennis Prager: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Obama's Islamist problem has nothing to do with his upbringing

JWisdom: Think your life is messed up? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 18, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Business with Friends

Diana West: Roars About Russia, Bare Whispers About Islam

JWisdom: Relationship agony: The real cause by Malka Schulman

August 15, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: To love the Divine

Caroline B. Glick: Georgia, Israel, and the nature of man

JWisdom: The Truly Righteous Don't Demand Entitlements by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 14, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Confessions of broken spirit

Libby Lazewnik: The Numbers Game

JWisdom: Six Questions You'll Be Asked in Heaven? - Uh - Let's Just Take One for Now! by Gavriel Aryeh Sanders

August 13, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Georgia should be on their minds

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Go Greek: Pair flavorful lamb kebabs with a hearty salad

JWisdom: Human hybrids aren't science fiction by Rabbi David Aaron

August 12, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bless us

Daniel Pipes: The West's Islamist Infiltrators

JWisdom: From Sadness to Gladness: The Route from Tisha b'Av to Rosh Hashana by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 11, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: A Jewish view on fair pricing

Caroline B. Glick: Ignoring failure in Gaza

JWisdom: 'Communication' Is Not The Answer! by Malka Schulman

August 7, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Continuing Story With a Sustaining Goal

Rabbi Berel Wein: Mourning and morning

JWisdom: Yes, we are still in exile by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 6, 2008

David Ashenfelter: Government made military engineer's life a living hell because of his faith, Defense Department report documents

Jonathan Tobin: Speak the Truth; Defeat the Lies

JWisdom: Jewish Spirituality: Fusion or Confusion? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 5, 2008

Chris Leppek: Church/state wall beginning to crumble?

Paul Greenberg: Exit Olmert (no encore, please)

JWisdom: Serenity: Make the commitment by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders)

August 4, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Am I taking advantage of another's psychological quirk?

Andrew Silow-Carroll: A black and a Jew walk into the White House…

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Edward R. Morrow visits the ‘living dead’ by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 12, 2006 / 16 Tamuz, 5766

Try though he might, Putin can't extinguish democracy

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | MOSCOW — The Other Russia Congress met here today, with over 3,000 people in attendance, along with hundreds of police to keep tabs on them. They are a hardy bunch, daring to show their faces amid a growing crackdown on democracy in Russia.


One knowledgeable leader of the congress told us "there is no difference — none — between the level of repression now and that which prevailed under Brezhnev." While President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice content themselves with lamenting "backsliding" on democracy, the naked truth is that Russia is now as repressive as it was under communism.


"Extremist" groups can be barred from participating in elections — and President Vladimir Putin defines who is and is not an extremist. The media, newspapers and television, are firmly under government control. Opposition views are simply not heard, and the news media just parrot government propaganda. Putin has cracked down on Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcasts, threatening stations that air them, effectively reducing their range to only Moscow and St. Petersburg.


Members of the Duma are selected from party slates — i.e. handpicked by Putin — and direct-election single-member districts have been abolished. Putin appoints governors, and the last democratically elected governor was arrested last month.


The former catalyst for the freedom and democracy movement, Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is in prison, serving an eight-year sentence. The jail is 12 miles from the Chinese border in a uranium-mining area where the radioactivity reduces life expectancy to 42 years. His sentence might as well be death. And, to make his life even worse in this frozen hell, where temperatures drop to 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, his face was recently slashed by a fellow inmate and he was locked in solitary confinement until his hunger strike forced his release back to the normal prison population.


This is Putin's Russia.


But democracy is stirring. Important national leaders like former Prime Minister (under Putin) Mikhail Kasyanov, the leader of the People's Democratic Union, and former chess champion Gary Kasparov are attacking Putin's autocracy. Kasyanov might run against the dictator's handpicked choice in 2008 unless Putin changes the constitution to allow himself to run for reelection. If he does, Kasyanov will give him a heck of a fight.


And the Bush administration? Quiet as a mouse. Bush and Rice have allowed Russia to stay in the G-8 with a democracy record no better than China's, which remains excluded. They are even considering opening Western oil markets to Russian exports.


Meanwhile, Putin is using oil diplomacy — or really energy aggression — to try to cow his former satellites into submission. He has tried to quintuple gas prices to Ukraine. He's bribed former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder with a $300,000-year-job with Gazprom, the Russian gas company, to OK and help fund a pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic. The pipeline threatens to cut off gas supplies to Poland and Ukraine to punish them for their apostasy. He won't buy Moldovan or Georgian wine to punish their freedom movements. (The United States should immediately lift its trade restrictions on wines from these two freedom-loving nations).


One has to ask whether the neocons of the Bush administration are on the job. No real pressure is coming from Washington, and Bush's approach is pathetically weak. Putin is buying them off with a commitment to take our used nuclear fuel off our hands and by seductive temporizing over the Iranian nuclear issue. If Bush were to stand up to Putin as President Reagan did to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Putin would be unable to get away with the mayhem he is undertaking in Russia and its former empire.


Richard Nixon once said of Bush senior that the world would ask, "Who lost Russia?" (an echo of his own 1950s question about China) if he did not increase aid to Moscow. Now the question of who lost Russia comes up again. And the answer, surprisingly is President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Because He Could". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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