RUTHFULLY YOURS

Both these films are are true stories. Both deal with lesser-known aspects of the Second World War. Both feature epic sadism against innocents.

In The German Doctor — called Wakolda in Europe — an unwitting Argentinian family of hoteliers takes in a boarder, slowly becoming aware that the man is no mere medical practitioner. The doctor is a handsome and laconic man, evidently a WWII-era era, possibly a Nazi physician (Alex Brendemühl) now in Bariloche, Argentina, after having successfully disappeared for well over a decade in Buenos Aires. It is 1960.

On the barren, featureless road to Barriloche, he meets an Argentinian family, becoming fascinated with their daughter Lilith (Florencia Bado), a one-time preemie who is consequently smaller than her peers. Doctor ‘Helmut Gregor,’ becomes a guest of the family’s renovated lodging house. With mother Eva’s permission (Natalia Oreiro) and behind suspicious father Enzo’s (Diego Peretti) back, the imperious doctor starts to treat the 12-year-old with unheard-of growth hormone to get her to grow to ‘normal’ size.

Lilith (the name has outsize resonance for the Biblically conscious, as she was the “second woman” who supposedly lured Adam from Eve to his sinful MacIntosh experimentation) is delighted by the “help” she is getting from the formidable doctor. She can now begin to hold her own amongst the feral teens who deride her small stature and refuse to let her compete on an even plane with them.

The horror of who and what Dr. Gregor really is dawns gradually on the family members as it becomes clear to the viewer. The story becomes a chilling psychological suspenser that features no tricks or special effects, but an icy recognition of what was happening for decades under our noses in Argentina, (elsewhere in South America many nations delightedly took in Axis murderers, but few with the alacrity and open-armed hugs of the Argentinian powers-that-were). The film provides an unusual perspective, since South America does not immediately spring to mind as the venue for increasing malfeasance, secrecy, dread, and horror.

The principals in the film, directed by the deft and talented Lucia Puenzo, are genuine and affecting, and the film makes excellent use of real WWII grainy footage, authentic notebooks, and nefarious underground clots of brutal schemers from verminous Nazi nests. (We use the gentlest, sweetest vocabulary fitting for the occasion.) There is also a subplot love story, but the audience white-knuckles it until the denouement. Not a frou-frou film, but well-worth a visit.

Barack Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost in Asia. During his ongoing trip to America’s most important allies in the region, he has been buffeted by ill-concealed anxieties at every stop that, these days, it is better to be an enemy of the United States than its friend.

That is a formula for having more enemies, and fewer friends.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in the run-up to Mr. Obama’s visit to the Western Pacific, U.S. military planners were busy drawing up “muscular” contingency plans in the event Communist China or North Korea engage in further “provocations.”

Of course, what is worrying our allies is not simply the prospect of more provocations. It’s the steadily growing capacity of such hostile powers to act on their stated intentions to threaten America’s friends, their sovereign territories and vital interests.

The examples of U.S. responses the Journal says are under consideration involve various, mostly symbolic gestures. These include B-2 flights in the region, more port calls by naval forces and intensified exercises with allied forces. Among the other options that have, evidently, not yet been approved by the Commander-in-Chief are intensified surveillance near China and the transiting of carrier battle groups through the Strait of Taiwan.

Welcome as such gestures would be to nations in the Western Pacific who have been promised an American “pivot” to the region, but seen little evidence of it, they still fall far short of what is required to deter the increasing ability of China and its proxy, North Korea, to exercise hegemony over their neighbors. Even the laudable conclusion of an agreement with the Philippines (just in time for President Obama’s visit to the country) will allow renewed use of bases there by U.S. forces, but not a permanent presence.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Unless and until the Obama administration reverses course on the wrecking operation it has conducted against the American military over the past five years, the United States will be hard pressed to present a serious deterrent to Chinese aggression, both in its own right and via its North Korean cut-out.

Absent the wherewithal and resolve to maintain in-theater the sort of power-projection assets that would constitute a serious impediment in the future to the sorts of things Beijing and Pyongyang have engaged in of late – including declarations of sovereignty, seizures of territory, threatening actions at sea and ballistic missile tests – we must expect more of the same. And worse.

Dear Victor Davis Hanson,

You suggest in your syndicated column, “Harry Reid: A McCarthy for Our Time,” that we “ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the same question once posed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy by U.S. Army head-counsel Robert [sic] N. Welch: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?’”

First of all — that would be Joseph N. Welch, not Robert. Robert W. Welch was someone rather different — a founder of the John Birch Society. Second, I would like to ask you a question: Are you aware of the context of Joseph N. Welch’s showboating remarks?

M. Stanton Evans did the spadework in Blacklisted by History, his groundbreaking – no, orbit-reversing – book about the late Sen. McCarthy, who died in 1957. The book devastates the fact-devoid conventional wisdom (including the “no decency” fable) on McCarthy and reconstructs an evidence-based record. A very different person emerges from Evans’ research: a political leader who – alas for the purveyors of “court history” – in no way resembles the execrable Harry Reid.

Yes, Welch theatrically denounced McCarthy at a June 1954 Senate hearing for outing Welch’s assistant Frederick Fisher as a former member of a Communist front, the National Lawyers Guild. But weeks earlier, on April 16, 1954, Welch himself outed Fisher – confirming that he’d relieved Fisher from duty over his previous front membership – in the pages of the New York Times!

It sounds fantastic – it is fantastic – but somehow Welch’s baseless “no decency” accusation lingers, its staying power derived from wells of pure ignorance, laziness or mendacity. It cries out for correction.

Next, you equate Reid’s smear of the peaceful patriots supporting Cliven Bundy as “domestic terrorists” with what you describe as McCarthy’s “smearing his opponents with lurid allegations, while questioning their patriotism.” Peaceful patriots demonstrating about federal government overreach equals covert Communists infiltrating the federal government? Is that a logical pairing? Which peaceful patriots did McCarthy smear with “lurid allegations,” anyway?

I note that despite your being a widely respected historian, the historical record is not a part of this essay. That is, your examples of Reid’s allegedly McCarthy-like evil come down to the familiar buzz phrases – “Have you no decency?” and “lurid allegations,” the famous list of names, “un-American.”

Take Reid’s slander of Mitt Romney as a tax cheat and what you deservedly call Reid’s “pathetic rejoinder” on being asked for proof: “I’ve had a number of people tell me that.” You compare that to McCarthy’s 1950 list of Communists on the State Department payroll. You write: “One wonders how many names were on Reid’s McCarthyite ‘tell’ list – were there, as McCarthy used to bluster, 205 names, or perhaps just 57?”

Again, is this an apt historical parallel? Malicious slander against a GOP nominee and allegations about serious security lapses in the State Department? I don’t think so. If the implication in your use of the word “bluster” is that McCarthy had no list of names, I’m sorry, but the evidence laid out in “Blacklisted by History” (Chapter 14) tells us otherwise.

Your column continues: “When asked again to document the slur, Reid echoed McCarthy perfectly: ‘The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.’”

In what instance has “Reid echoed McCarthy perfectly”? Are you implying that McCarthy’s investigations into Communists in the federal government were based on evidence of no higher caliber or substance than Reid’s wholly unsubstantiated bombast?

On Wednesday, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations rejected J Street’s bid for membership. Of the 42 out of 50 members present at the vote, 17 were in favor, 22 opposed and three abstained.

Needing 34 supporting votes to gain entry “into the tent,” J Street would have lost even if the eight groups absent, together with those who had refrained from casting a ballot, had backed its entry.

It was, in other words, a resounding defeat.

Since its inception in 2008, J Street’s goal has been to compete with, undermine and eventually replace the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as the most influential Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill. And though initially this seemed to be too tall an order for the fledgling organization that called itself “pro-Israel and pro-peace” — a euphemism for pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab world — J Street began to gain momentum.

It certainly received media coverage for every one of its events, no matter how poorly attended; and its director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, became prominent on the lecture and panel circuit. This provided him the opportunity to attack Israel in the guise of defending it against the policies of its government, while accusing J Street’s critics of stifling healthy and robust debate.

Liberals are always suckers for such blackmail. Ben-Ami knows this and has tried, often successfully, to use it to his advantage.

But there is one crack in his armor and calculations: His operation is funded by radical left-wing billionaire George Soros.

That awkward moment when the guy you put in a key position flees to Pakistan

The Point has covered the tale of Amer Ahmad before.

Ahmad was the Ohio Deputy State Treasurer who, among other crimes, helped out Mohammed Noure Alo, a lobbyist and immigration attorney with six figures in legal fees and helped his wife get a job announced only at the mosque.

Ahmad, who served as Ohio’s deputy treasurer and chief investment official, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud and money laundering. He was hired in Chicago by Mayor Rahm Emanuel after the crimes in Ohio were committed. Mayor Emanuel has said that he knew nothing about the infractions and that nothing criminal was done in Chicago.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration on Monday produced a letter showing it knew about questions surrounding Amer Ahmad and a controversial government contract in Ohio before the mayor hired him as Chicago’s comptroller in April 2011.

So Rahm hired a guy who was set to be charged for bribery and fraud… as comptroller. Claimed not to know anything and then presented a letter showing that the issue was well known.

Chicago.

Then Amer Ahmad pleaded guilty and made a run for Pakistan.

As promised in my previous column on the reception by the press and news media of Justice John Paul’s new book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, I have read his book and now can review it here.
There is a prologue, an appendix containing the Constitution, and six chapters, each chapter devoted to one of Stevens’s recommended amendments. At the end of each chapter, after lengthy and often in-depth discussions of the history and role of the existing amendment in Supreme Court and other federal court decisions, Stevens states his amendment. Stevens is an excellent writer. His prose is clear and unburdened by jargon and legalese. One supposes that is a natural consequence of having written numerous 100-page or more opinions during a six-year stint on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then over a 35-year career on the Supreme Court.
Readers accustomed to encountering a concluding, assertive statement, followed by an explanation for the conclusion (e.g., at the beginning of a trial, a prosecutor would say, “The State will prove that John Doe murdered Bob Smith.”), will experience a reversal of that usual order of reasoning, which employs deduction and often induction. Stevens instead explains first, and concludes with his opinion at the end of each chapter (e.g., “Here is what happened, and why, this is what X said and this is what Y said, and the timetable; and the jury, in the end, must find John Doe guilty of murder.”).
Stevens’s writing style, however, is double-edged, for his hostility towards the existing amendments to the Constitution, three of which he wishes to rewrite, and three new ones he wishes to be added, is made clearer. That hostility is not disguised by verbose and affected discourse or by a sophist’s bewildering labyrinth of irrelevancies and false turns that would flat-line the mind of the sharpest reader. The six areas Stevens discusses are the “anti-commandeering” rule, political gerrymandering, campaign finance, sovereign immunity, the death penalty, and the Second Amendment (gun control). I shall address these subjects in the order in which Stevens presents them.
It would be fair to say up front that, in all cases and all issues he discusses, Stevens champions federal power and authority over that of the individual states (and, indirectly, over individual rights). In his Prologue, after briefly discussing how the withdrawal of federal troops in the Southern states in 1877 engendered the rise of the Ku Klux Klan (with the approbation of Southern Democrats), he inadvertently demonstrates how destructive Constitutional amendments can be.

Will the April, 2014 accord between Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad transition these two Islamic terrorist organizations to moderation, or does it shed light on Mahmoud Abbas’ core ideology?

Unlike Western policy-makers and public opinion molders, Arab leaders never doubted Mahmoud Abbas’ core ideology. Therefore, they deny him adequate financial support, while the Arab oil-producing countries provide Egypt multi-billion dollar assistance. Similarly, during the 1980s, Saudi Arabia provided Afghanistan’s Muslim rebels a billion dollars in annual aid, while extending Arafat a mere $100 million annually, which was cut off following Arafat’s and Mahmoud Abbas’ betrayal of Kuwait in August 1990, when they collaborated with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the Sheikhdom. Moreover, Arab countries did not support the PLO and Hamas during their grand confrontations with Israel: the 1st and 2nd Intifadahs, the Lebanon War and the series of wars in Gaza.

The Arab attitude towards Abbas is driven by Abbas’ track record of intra-Arab subversion and terrorism. For example, during the late 1950s, Abbas and Arafat fled Egypt because of their subversive and terrorist activities, carried out as key Muslim Brotherhood operatives. In 1966, they fled Syria to Jordan, following their murders of a number of Syrian intelligence officers. In 1970, they were expelled from Jordan to Lebanon, following their attempt to topple Jordan’s Hashemite regime, which ignited a brutal civil war. By 1975, they had plundered large parts of Southern Lebanon, attempting to overthrow the central regime in Beirut, which triggered the Syrian invasion of Lebanon, a series of civil wars and the destruction of Lebanon. In 1990, Palestinian intelligence cells in Kuwait and Palestinian battalions in Iraq facilitated Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, which since 1960 had been the preferred safe haven for 300,000 Palestinian relatives and allies of Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. As a result of that egregious betrayal, Kuwait expelled over 200,000 Palestinians. No Arab leader protested that expulsion!

Disgusting video taped at Yad Vashem features a prostitute who claims Israelis should thank the Nazis for the Holocaust.
The Jewish Home party’s chairwoman MK Ayelet Shaked described the stunt – which was uploaded to Youtube – as “another illustration of the lack of boundaries from the creators of the organizations supported by the New Israel Fund.”
“You won’t believe what you are seeing,” she ended the message on her Facebook wall. Her reference to the far-left New Israel Fund (NIF) may lie in the fact that some of those involved in the film work for groups funded by the NIF. One such person is Itamar Shapira, who receives special thanks in the video’scredits, whom the Hebrew-language Mida website identified as an activist in the NIF-backed anti-military group Breaking the Silence.

A shocking videotaped publicly by left-wing activists on the campus of Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum has provoked a storm of anger in Israel.
The video was taken in front of a monument commemorating Holocaust victims, and features an actress dressed as a prostitute calling herself “the Holocaust,” who says the Jewish nation should thank her for teaching it “how to round up Palestinians in concentration camps.”

Throughout her expletive-filled tirade the actress, who was flanked by a man who appeared to be a bodyguard, made obscene gestures and screamed at shocked members of the public who had come to pay their respects to victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

She continued to goad visitors, urging them to applaud “the Holocaust”, without which, she claimed, there would be no State of Israel or IDF.
Arutz Sheva has chosen not to show the video due to its highly offensive content.

With persecution against Christians increasing in African nations and other places worldwide where Islam is advancing, an American pastor is calling black churches and others to join together to raise voices of opposition.

Stephen Broden of the Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas is organizing a rally in his city next month under the banner of Americans Against the Persecution of Christians in Muslim Countries.

The coalition says it’s “committed to stopping the genocide of Christians in many Muslim countries.”

A march is scheduled to begin May 17 at 2 p.m. at City Hall Plaza in front of Dallas City Hall.

Among the speakers at the Dallas event are Rev. William Owens Jr., author and Jihad Watch founder Robert Spencer, author and Rescue Christians founder Walid Shoebat and counter-terrorism expert David Gaubatz, author of “Muslim Mafia,” published by WND Books.

But the coalition wants ministers of all denominations to join in mass protest marches in all major American cities to “break the politically-correct conspiracy of silence which has concealed this immense crime against humanity.”

Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians” produces the evidence. It’s available at the WND Superstore

Broden said the coalition is marching “in the footsteps and spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” deriving its core inspiration from his admonition to confront evil openly.

“Our lives begin to end on the day that we become silent about things that matter,” King said.

Donald Sterling. Al Sharpton. One famous mostly in the precincts of Los Angeles, real estate, and sports. The other a household name.

Here’s the first man, quoted talking to a potential Clippers coach in 1983, as reported over at Deadspin, which has published what it calls “Your Complete Guide to Decades of Donald Sterling’s Racism”: “I wanna know why you think you can coach these ni–ers.”

And here’s Al Sharpton talking about then-New York Mayor David Dinkins, as was reported in this space: “David Dinkins.… You wanna be the only ni–er on television, the only ni–er in the newspaper, the only ni–er to talk.…Don’t cover them, don’t talk to them, cause you got the only ni–er problem….”

So it is nothing if not fitting to know the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP was set to honor both Donald Sterling and Al Sharpton — together — at a dinner on May 15, as the Los Angeles Times reported here. Sterling was set for a Lifetime Achievement Award and Sharpton for a “Person of the Year” award.

Now comes Sterling’s latest, a taped string of racial insults — and the NAACP is giving him the heave ho. But Sharpton? His lifetime of racialism nobody seems to mind. Only the other day Mr. Obama and his attorney general appeared at a gathering of — yes — Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

And let’s recall: Just a few weeks back liberals were applauding Mozilla for dumping CEO Brendan Eich for making a $1,000 contribution to California’s Prop 8 that banned same-sex marriage. For this Eich was condemned as an anti-gay bigot. Yet, as we documented in the story in this space linked above, there is Al Sharpton big as life on video tape charging a TV audience member and bellowing: “You ain’t nothing, you a punk faggot. Now come on, do something!”

In spite of this, Sharpton gets his own MSNBC TV show, the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States show up at his meetings, and the NAACP bestows on him an award. In a world of hypocrisies this one is hard to top.

But the Left will give it the yeoman try, as they always do. So let’s get to it. And the volunteer to step forward here is… Michael Tomasky over at the Daily Beast. As many have pointed out, Sterling contributed to two Democratic campaigns years ago, but Tomasky writes that — gasp! — Sterling is a registered Republican! Ohhhhhhhh the humanity!

In truth, neither Sterling’s contributions nor his registration are important. What’s important here is Mr. Sterling’s apparently long (forgive me, I stick with the Red Sox and until this controversy had never heard of Clippers owner Donald Sterling) record of racist comments. As word leaks that Sterling’s reputation on race was everywhere in Los Angeles — and the NAACP was willing to give him his award anyway until this latest flap — it emphasizes just how far this once stellar organization has gone to throwing away its moral authority.