RUTHFULLY YOURS

Alvaro Vargas Llosa’s The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty [2] is less of a study of the life of the Communist killer than a look at how his totalitarian legacy poisons Latin America today. Totalitarianism in Latin America is the real theme of The Che Guevara Myth. The myth is less about Che the individual than the idea that violent terror can bring reform rather than further cycles of brutal oppression.

As Alvaro Vargas Llosa points out, “Che Guevara had a lot more in common with the men and systems he fought than would seem conceivable.” The same was true of Fidel Castro, the son of a plantation owner who received a wedding gift from Batista or Vladimir Lenin, the son of a nobleman.

At least four board members of the highly efficient cash-for-favors trading platform known as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation have either been charged with or convicted of serious crimes, including bribery and fraud, according to an eagerly awaited blockbuster of a book.

The book is Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by acclaimed best-selling author Peter Schweizer. Although it only became available for sale to the public on May 5, on Sunday it was already the 15th best-selling book on Amazon.com. The New York Times calls the meticulously documented opus “the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy,” and reports that it “asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.”

A newly hired Boston University professor has come under fire for several anti-white comments she made on Twitter, but the school says she is simply practicing free speech.

Incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies, Saida Grundy tweeted a slew of tweets over several months blasting white males which have drawn criticism on social media, Fox News reported Saturday.

“White masculinity isn’t a problem for America’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for America’s colleges,” Ms. Grundy tweeted in March.

In another tweet from January, she wrote, “Every MLK week I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. And every year I find it nearly impossible.”

In another tweet she called white males a “problem population,” Fox reported.

Last year McCartney apologized for saying “All lives matter” instead of “Black lives matter”….in response to a vigil against police brutality……rsk
Via the Boston Globe:

Motherhood is a cultural invention. It reflects a belief adopted by society that is passed down from one generation to the next. In US culture, we hold to the idea that young children are better off when cared for exclusively by their mothers. Mothers are bombarded by this message in the media, especially in programming directed to them. Only after five seasons does Claire Dunphy, the iconic mother of “Modern Family,” return to the workplace.

I could respond with single mother/career mother roles from media to counter Ms. McCartney’s critical “Modern Family” example, but I’m writing a blog post, not a book.

Part of this is rooted in the leftist pitch to get your kids into daycare as early as possible for the beginning of the indoctrination that will make them believe things like “motherhood is a cultural invention” without questioning.

North Korea’s test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile announced Saturday was not entirely a surprise. The rogue state makes its own version of the 1960s-era Soviet SS-N-6 and uses it as an upper stage in its multistage rockets. Last year a South Korean official confirmed that the North was modifying subs to carry the missile.

In theory this means Pyongyang could mount a surprise nuclear attack, though the missile would require more testing to reliably deliver a warhead. The North could be lying or released doctored photographs, in this case of dictator Kim Jong Un standing aboard a ship and watching as a missile takes flight from beneath the sea.

They reject his attempts to reassure them over the Iran nuclear deal.

The promise of a successful nuclear deal with Iran is that it will stop nuclear proliferation, moderate Tehran’s behavior, make the Middle East a safer place, and perhaps allow the U.S. to play a less active role in a troublesome region. Try telling that to the Arab leaders who were supposed to visit the White House and Camp David this week, but are now finding a reason not to show up.

President Obama announced the visit when he unveiled the Iran “framework” last month. The goal is to reassure the king of Saudi Arabia—along with the emirs and princes of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates—that the U.S. will continue to support them despite the nuclear deal with Iran. The President has also suggested he’ll have a “tough conversation” about their internal politics, though how another Obama lecture on good governance will ease concerns about U.S. reliability is anyone’s guess.

A society that rejects the notion of a heckler’s veto cannot accept the idea of a murderer’s veto.

Since when did the phrase “she was asking for it” gain respectability in the encyclopedia of American political correctness?

In 2011 Lara Logan was sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, after which several bloggers chimed in that the CBS correspondent somehow had it coming to her because she’s blonde and pretty and the demonstrators were frenzied and male. Respectable opinion, conservative and liberal alike, rose up as one to denounce the appalling suggestion.

Fast forward to the May 3 terrorist attack on the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, in which two jihadists attempted to shoot their way into a Muhammad cartoon contest organized by Pamela Geller and her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Since the attack, Ms. Geller has been denounced from Fox News to Comedy Central as a provocation artist who needlessly and knowingly put people’s lives in danger.

“This is problematic to me, because I wonder whether this group that held this event down there to basically disparage and make fun of the prophet Muhammad doesn’t in some way cause these events,” commented Chris Matthews. “Well, not the word ‘causing’—how about provoking, how about taunting, how about daring?”

— Fred Fleitz is senior vice president for policy and programs for the Center for Security Policy. He worked in national-security positions for 25 years with the CIA, the State Department, and the House Intelligence Committee.

Although the Obama administration refuses to say that the attempted massacre by two heavily armed assailants at a “draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas, was an act of terrorism directed by ISIS, there is little doubt this was the case. One of the heavily armed attackers had been in touch through Twitter with jihadists in Australia and Somalia who were associated with ISIS and who had called for attacks on the Garland event. ISIS also seemed to know about the attack in advance and immediately claimed responsibility for it.

Pamela Geller, the organizer of the “draw Mohammed” contest, wrote this week that whether ISIS leaders actually directed the attack or only had foreknowledge of it is a distinction without a difference, since ISIS has called for attacks on the United States and published manuals explaining how homegrown Islamist terrorists can construct bombs and kill infidels.

The Garland attack was stopped in a matter of seconds — but only because of a heavy police presence assigned to the event and a traffic cop who somehow killed both assailants with his service revolver even though they were wearing body armor. However, this will certainly not be the last attack in the United States by homegrown terrorists inspired or directed by ISIS and al-Qaeda. There may not be heavy security in place the next time ISIS attacks.

‘Today China is our key strategic partner,” President Vladimir Putin said May 8, in Moscow. In 2015, China and Russia share much in common. Both nations are ruled by confident authoritarians. Both rulers embrace territorial expansionism through the barrel of a gun. Neither has much interest in compromise. And bound by these physical and philosophical similarities, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are becoming good friends.

This past weekend, attending Russia’s World War II memorial in Moscow, President Jinping got cozy with President Putin. In addition to lending about $25 billion to cash-strapped Russian companies, China will support a major Russian rail-infrastructure project and increase its imports of Russian natural gas. In return, Russia will expand exports of advanced military equipment to China. And as a further sign of warmed relations, the two nations will conduct joint exercises in the Mediterranean Sea this week.

Free speech and artistic and intellectual expression have been controversial Western traditions since the rise of the classical-Greek city-state. When our Founding Fathers introduced guarantees of such freedoms to our new nation, they were never intended to protect thinkers whom we all admire or traditionalists who produce beloved movies like The Sound of Music.

The First Amendment to the Constitution instead was designed to protect the obnoxious, the provocative, the uncouth, and the creepy — on the principle that if the foulmouths can say or express what they wish and the public can put up with it, then everyone else is assured of free speech.