RUTHFULLY YOURS

Editor’s note: The following is the second in a series of articles that will center on the Frontpage motto: “Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” Each piece will examine recent examples of leftist overreach and expose the totalitarian mindset animating these excesses. To view the first article in the series on The Death of the Neighborhood, click here [2].

Since ancient Athens free speech has been at the heart of political freedom. “Free men have free tongues,” as Sophocles said, for freedom depended on citizens empowered to speak freely in the public deliberations about policy and the laws through which they governed. That’s why the Founders wrote the First Amendment, to prevent force from trumping law by silencing dissent. That’s also why the enemies of political freedom always try to destroy free speech.

With his encyclical, “Laudato Si” (Be Praised), the Pope stepped into the quagmire that is climate change. While it is a theological treatise, he joined his infallible voice with those who regard man as the principal cause of climate change. He placed blame on the “developed” world, by which he means the English-speaking nations, Western Europe and Japan. He wrote: “The exploitation of the planet has already exceeded acceptable limits and we have still not solved the problem of poverty.” There was no mention that capitalism and democracy have done more to reduce poverty than anything else, including religion.

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 Hillary 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.

Instead the media pined for Elizabeth Warren. When the Native American Rachel Dolezal declined to jump into the race, they switched their allegiance to Bernie Sanders; a senile Socialist who fondly reminisces about 90% tax rates. Now Ready for Warren is throwing its support behind Bernie.

Marzouk’s remarks refute claims by some in the Arab and Western media that Hamas is moving toward pragmatism and moderation, and that it is now willing, for the first time, to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many in the West often fail to understand Hamas’s true position because they do not follow what Hamas says in Arabic — to its own people. In Arabic, Hamas makes no secret of its call for the destruction of Israel.

The current strategy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to negotiate with the international community, and not with Israel, about achieving peace in the Middle East. The ultimate goal of the PA is to force Israel to its knees. For the PA, rallying the international community and Europe is about punishing and weakening Israel, not making peace with it.

As the New York Times reports this morning, not a single Republican presidential candidate has the courage to tell South Carolina to stop flying the Confederate battle flag from its state capitol. It is a bit late for that, to be sure; public display of any kind of the symbol of the slaveholders’ rebellion should have been banned after the Union victory in 1865. Removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of South Carolina’s seat of government has become an African-American cause in the wake of last week’s Charleston church massacre. It may be incommensurate with the crime, but black Americans are entirely justified in their rancor against official sanction of a symbol of slavery.

The most explosive passage in Michael Oren’s new book on the frayed U.S.-Israel relationship is not about President Barack Obama’s repeated fights with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rather, it is about Obama himself.
Struggling to understand how Obama–who has genuine empathy for Israel, Oren says–could adopt policies and postures so hostile to the Jewish state, Oren turns to Obama’s first memoir, Dreams from My Father. What he reads shocks him:

“More alarming for me still were Obama’s attitudes towards America. Vainly, I scoured Dreams from My Father for some expression of reverence, even respect, for the country its author would someday lead. Instead, the book criticizes Americans for their capitalism and consumer culture, for despoiling their environment and maintaining antiquated power structures. Traveling abroad, they exhibited “ignorance and arrogance”–the very shortcomings the president’s critics assigned to him.”

Hillary Clinton says, “Success isn’t measured by how much the wealthiest Americans have, but by how many children climb out of poverty.” So why did she charge an exorbitant speaking fee to a charity that helps poor kids?

Fine, she sent the cash to another “nonprofit” — the family’s $2 billion foundation. But Condi Rice, another ex-secretary of state, gave her own (much lower) fee from the same outfit — the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, Calif. — back to the charity.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like China? Cordial meetings are exactly the wrong way to confront China’s very real threats.

This week, top American and Chinese officials will meet in Washington for the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED). The dialogue, which the Obama administration began in 2009, was once touted as one of Washington’s most important bilateral meetings, potentially even a de facto G-2, where the world’s two dominant powers would not only settle their differences but shape Asian, if not global, economic and political issues. Experience has proved a bitter teacher, however, and the hopes of just a few years ago have dissipated as the desired strategic partnership has devolved into an undeniable strategic competition.

After Donald Trump’s bizarre announcement last week that he was running for president, it occurred to me that many observers are misreading Trump.

Many consider him a joke. Not true. Trump knows when he is being outrageous — and acts that way consciously to build his brand. Some consider him a menace, pointing out polls that show he would do well if he abandoned the GOP after the primaries and ran as an independent. But Trump is too smart to waste money on a futile effort to capture 270 electoral votes. He will conclude — like Michael Bloomberg, another billionaire — that American politics is a two-party duopoly.

The Obama White House thinks that when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, we ought to let bygones be bygones. What’s past is past, and now it’s time to focus on the future. Sure, the administration once thought it was a problem that the Iranians refused to disclose their past nuclear activities, or what the International Atomic Energy Agency calls the “possible military dimensions” (PMDs) of their nuclear program. As John Kerry said in April, if Iran wants sanctions relief it will need to come clean about its past activities—it will “have to do it,” said Kerry. “It will be done.”