RUTHFULLY YOURS

The inevitability of Hillary Clinton has been a deliberate strategy by supporters of the former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady. The idea: perception becomes reality. It may be working. Noah Gordon, writing in the April 12, 2015 issue of The Atlantic, noted: “Since mid-2013, Clinton’s share of Democratic primary voters has averaged 60 percent.” In the build-up to the 2008 election, those same numbers were 40 percent. A question: will it backfire? For example, the number of people who consider her dishonest has reached new highs. And she has attracted some minor competition.

Running a primary without meaningful competition is a risk for a major political Party in a democratic republic. The concept of “inevitability” is present in hereditary monarchies, not amongst people for whom government is a guarantor of personal liberty and property rights, not the perpetuator of one family or one Party. Our government is based on the rule of law – laws that stem from the inalienable rights of the people – not the rule of men. We do not presume preordination. We should not claim entitlement to ensure nomination or election.

Predetermination carries with it a sense of invincibility. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, that does not mean those who support her feel she is unbeatable, but that she should run a cautious campaign – a “listening” tour and avoid controversial positions. Certainly, she believes the nomination is deserved – in fact, feels she is “owed” it. She concludes she is capable of being President. She was with her husband for eight years (alright, not always with him), and she served President Obama for four years. She is intelligent and experienced. Besides she is a woman – a feminist she would have us believe. She would be the first of her gender, and being “first” – especially for those on the Left – counts for more than ideas, policies or character. She has been loyal to her Party and to her husband, neither of whom have always been loyal to her. She has name recognition, which is a positive, but her name is also synonymous with dishonesty, cronyism and obfuscation.

This past Cinco de Mayo, the eagle-eyed Ruth S. King, board member of Family Security Foundation and columnist for Americans for a Safe Israel’s Outpost, alerted me to what she called an “appalling whitewash of Albania in American Thinker.”

Of course, it’s less appalling if one recalls my own bumpy Balkans history with American Thinker, as I’ve had with almost every other publication that had the momentary courage (or blissful naivete) to publish my minority view (a.k.a. the truth) about Kosovo and who the real aggressor was. Publisher Thomas Lifson had followed the familiar pattern wherein an editor is at first thankful that I put the subject on his radar and did the hard research — then feels immediately overburdened by the subject as soon as it causes real controversy and shows how unpopular the actual history is. Often, they turn on a dime when the hyenas of the majority view start screeching about the rare appearance of something other than the monopoly perspective — that only allowable, only existing (as far as you’re supposed to know), recent recorded history of the region.

And so American Thinker, like American Legion, Baltimore Sun and others before it, went from respect and gratitude to resentment, avoidance and annoyance at the name Julia Gorin. After kindly allowing one or two more Gorin pieces on the subject in 2007, Mr. Lifson declared that A.T. would stay away from the Balkans all together. The way the rest already do (except when it’s a rehash or tangent of the permitted narrative).

But then on Christmas 2010 he reprinted a majority-view article titled”A Srebrenica Christmas,” and when he again broached the Balkans in March 2011 with a good piece by Victor Sharpe titled “Hillary’s War” and I thanked him, he said he almost didn’t run it, since “Nobody is ever convinced to change his/her mind on the Balkans, and it is not worth the trouble focusing on it.” To which I replied, “Publishing the occasional piece on the Balkans amid the avalanche of standard-issue stuff isn’t exactly ‘focusing.’ Interesting that it feels that way to you. Sort of underscores my point about the lack of American palate, fortitude and stamina vis-à-vis the Balkans, where world wars and Orwellian societal experimentation by our elites begin. (Coming soon to Americans.)”

Obama introduced himself to the nation as the son of black and white parents. He has gone back and forth between Christianity and Islam like a philanderer in a bar.

Now he has added a third religion and race to complete his identity politics trinity.

At the last White House Chanukah dinner, he claimed to have a Jewish soul. At a synagogue speech last month, he called himself “an honorary member of the tribe”. Now his former senior advisor has quoted him as saying, “I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.”

Of course Barack Obama has also been Irish. He stated, “I consider myself an honorary Italian, because I love all things Italian”. Newsweek dubbed him “The First Woman President [2]” in 2008 for “bending gender conventions” and promoted him to “The First Gay President” four years later. Cabinet Secretary Lu and Congressman Honda argued [3] that he was “The First Asian American President”.

If you make up an ethnic group or race, by tomorrow Barack Obama will be a member of it. By next week, he will be lecturing it on why it isn’t living up to their shared values.

Obama’s Jewish toadies, like his multicultural frog pond toadies of all races and ethnicities, have been trying to sell Barack Obama as a “Born-Again Jew” for seven years.

His left-wing mentor Abner Mikva claimed during the original campaign, “When this all is over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.” But Abner hedged his bets, baptizing Obama in a Mikvah by urging him to study the speaking patterns of Baptist preachers instead.

New York Magazine put Obama on the cover under a photoshopped Kippah as “The First Jewish President” and whined inside that, “Barack Obama is the best thing Israel has going for it right now. Why is that so difficult for Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies to understand?”

Congress should kill the Export-Import Bank, a taxpayer-financed slush fund for crooks, cronies, and corporate flops. Rather than reauthorize this gold-plated boondoggle, Congress simply should do nothing. If so, the Ex-Im Bank will die of terminal inaction on June 30.

And what a well-deserved death that would be. As a new report details, this multibillion-dollar Pandora’s Bank teems with unaffordable horrors.

American Transparency/OpenTheBooks.com (on whose advisory board I serve) scrutinized $172 billion in Ex-Im Bank loans, guarantees, and transactions from Fiscal Year 2007 through FY 2014. Among this watchdog group’s discoveries:

A new poll released Thursday might contain some bad news for Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton: Iowans want a candidate who is open with the press and voters.

A survey of likely Iowa caucusgoers conducted by the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics from May 25-29 found that 77 percent of the 437 Democrats polled want to elect a nominee who will “meet with and answer questions from news reporters and editors.” An astounding 96 percent of respondents want a nominee who will “take questions from voters.”

”Clinton hasn’t sat for an interview with the Des Moines Register or any other Iowa newspaper this election cycle, but rival Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have each done multiple interviews,” writes Jennifer Jacobs. “Vice President Joe Biden, who is still weighing whether to jump into the 2016 race, has answered Iowa reporters’ questions at a news conference.”

‘We have a lot of information about people, and that is something that our adversaries want.”

That’s how Donna Seymour, an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) official recently described the OPM hacking to a reporter for the Washington Post. As we found out yesterday, in April, Chinese hackers intruded OPM networks and potentially acquired the personal information of 4 million U.S. government employees.

So how did this happen? Well, according to an OPM press release, the agency has been upgrading its network security over the past year. That said, yesterday’s press release also notes that it was only after the April hacking that OPM focused on “restricting remote access for network administrators . . . and deploying anti-malware software” against programs that might “compromise the network.” In short, OPM hasn’t been moving fast enough to prevent hacking.

At a moment when many on the left are desperately trying to conjure up enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton’s bid to become the first woman president, others on the left want to turn the word “woman” into a term of exclusion and oppression.

This is just one of the more amusing ironies on display as what passes for liberalism today eats itself.

No doubt you’ve heard: Bruce Jenner has become Caitlyn Jenner. I can’t muster much outrage about this. If someone born a man wants to live as a woman, or vice versa, they are free to do so as far as I’m concerned. What does bother me is the way everyone is expected to celebrate Jenner’s decision and courage. Why can’t I just not care? Or, maybe I just don’t want to be part of a massive public-relations effort tied to the rollout of yet another reality show?

Seven Candidates on Harleys? Mad Voter Goes to Joni’s ‘Roast and Ride’

The Mad Voter (meaning me) is heading for Iowa Friday to attend Senator Joni Ernst’s “Roast and Ride” Saturday in someplace called Boone. Not only have I never been to Boone, I’ve never been to Iowa. But never mind. I’m going now and probably will several times more before this is over because Iowa is — as we all know — the number one caucus state, having injected itself into a poll position in every presidential election, for good or ill, for long as we can remember. (Yes, I’ll be asking people “Why Iowa?”)

So you may be asking, wazza ”Roast and Ride“? Well, you may recall former Senator Tom Harkin — the putative Navy flying ace – gives an annual steak fry in Iowa that is a Democratic Party must-attend. Ernst — an actual military hero unlike her predecessor — seems to be going him one better with a pig roast cum motor cycle ride to Boone for the GOP presidential candidates. The kickoff will be at Big Barn Harley-Davidson in Des Moines on Saturday at 11.

This tilts somewhat to Scott Walker, who is attending and, like Ernst herself, is a known Harley rider. No word on the others who are coming, but they are Ben Carson (doing surprisingly well), Carly Fiorina (whom I wrote about here), Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry (just in Thursday with a rousing speech) and Marco Rubio, who has been, with Walker, an early frontrunner and is said by the NYT to put the fear of God in the Democratic establishment. Each candidate has been allotted eight minutes to speak, which probably will be about three times as much as they will get in the debates. Before and after there will be fun and games at the Central Iowa Expo with people playing cornhole and eating Iowa foods that we can assume (thankfully) will be very short on kale.

Which leads to the question — why only these seven of the umpteen candidates are showing for what promises to be a lot of free publicity in a benign environment. Where are Ernst’s Senate colleagues Ted Cruz and Rand Paul? Where’s the soon-to-be announcing Jeb Bush and former Iowa (narrow) victor Rick Santorum (not to mention George Pataki, Donald Trump and my Uncle Sid) ? I don’t know, but will ask when I’m there, once I wipe the fried ice cream off my face. (Hey, there’s no hurry. It’s a long campaign.)

Tough break, enviroloons.

A long-awaited EPA report released Thursday found no signs of “widespread, systemic” drinking water pollution caused by fracking — a conclusion that offers a victory to the oil and gas industry and a major blow to a wave of grassroots anti-drilling movements sprouting across the country.

The results of EPA’s years-long fracking study should bolster natural gas producers, who have benefited from Obama administration climate and environmental policies that have shrunk the coal industry’s hold on the electricity industry.

After years of denial, the U.S. response must now go beyond countering ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

As Islamic State advances in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, there is a deadly twist in the war. The radical Islamist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is now expanding in roughly a dozen countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia by exploiting local grievances, doling out money and leveraging its battlefield successes.

Even as the United States struggles to combat Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, swift U.S. action is urgently needed in these new Islamic State outposts to stop and ultimately reverse the group’s spread. The May 29 suicide bombing of a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia, the second recent attack on that predominantly Sunni nation, shows how undaunted Islamic State has become.