RUTHFULLY YOURS

When he came to office, not unlike other politicians, Obama made many promises. Nearly every promise he made has remained unfulfilled — with one exception: The promise that “change has come to America.”

My dad used to tell me that nothing was so good it could not be better or be so bad it could not get worse. Things have indeed gotten worse, much worse, and it would appear that there is no bottom as to how far we may ultimately fall at the hands of an administration and politicians from both sides of the aisle, who only care about garnering huge campaign contributions and winning elections at any and all costs. America and Americans are, indeed, picking up that tab.

Cooling down the churning cauldron of mob violence that Baltimore has become is not on the agenda of the ACLU which is now preparing to turn up the heat in cities across America.

Following the suspicious death in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man with a long rap sheet, angry mobs and radical agitators have turned Maryland’s largest city into a Hobbesian jungle. They were already angry at the endlessly sensationalized deaths in recent years of black males such as Trayvon Martin (Sanford, Fla.), Michael Brown (Ferguson, Mo.), Eric Garner (Staten Island, N.Y.), and Tamir Rice (Cleveland, Ohio) at the hands of non-blacks, but the seemingly senseless death of Gray last month pushed them over the edge.

The diversity mania rages at most colleges and universities in America, but Brown University might be the “leader” in this regard. While officials at other institutions say the right things and make the right gestures to appease the diversity deities, at Brown they really mean it!

In today’s Pope Center Clarion Call, John Rosenberg examines the school’s recent record and concludes that Brown has “doubled down” on diversity.

The criticism leveled against the would-be victims, rather than the perpetrators, of Sunday night’s attempted terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, reveals how “morally inverted” America’s conception of free speech has become, Pamela Geller told CNN on Monday.

As if to prove her point, on Wednesday the Washington Post published the following headline:

Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas

Wrote the Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar: “If the contest was intended as bait, it worked.” And, “In an interview with the Washington Post, Geller said she and her fellow organizers were ‘prepared for violence’ this past weekend. In tweets immediately after the shooting, Geller appeared almost gleeful that she had been right.”

Here’s the sad and desperate tale of Nadir Soofi, one of two terrorists killed in Garland, Texas, before he could launch a Charlie Hebdo-style massacre:

Soofi studied at the $20,000-a-year International School of Islamabad from 1992 to 1998, where contemporaries said he was funny, popular and charming and showed no inclination towards extremism.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one told AFP Soofi was “quite suave and charismatic” and something of a “ladies’ man” as a student . . . Soofi’s mother taught art at the heavily-guarded school, which is popular with diplomats and rich Pakistanis, several of his contemporaries said.

He took part in theatre productions, and another schoolmate said Soofi starred as the lead in “Bye Bye Birdie”, a musical inspired by Elvis Presley, transforming him from a sweet, shy boy into “a confident heartthrob”.

On Saturday, 15,000 Russian troops, 200 tanks and trucks, and 150 airplanes and helicopters will parade through Red Square in the largest military spectacle held in Moscow since the collapse of the USSR. Songs will be sung. Speeches will be made. New weapons will be unveiled. Clouds will even be seeded with silver iodide to prevent rain. All of Russia will stop for a day to remember the victory of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union over Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, 70 years ago to the day.

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s historic spectacle will be the latest in a long line of cynical and systematic attempts by the Kremlin to minimize the horrors of Soviet Communism — and the decades of occupation it imposed on millions of human beings throughout Europe and Eurasia. In glorifying the totalitarian rule of the Soviet era, it is also a not-too-subtle effort to justify the cruel realities of Putin’s Russia today.

Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece?

The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them.

What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and not enough production, a debased currency, and endemic corruption.

Americans currently deal with all those symptoms. But two more fundamental causes for decline are even more frightening: an unwillingness to pay taxes and the end of the rule of law.

Al Sharpton is again prominently in the news, blaming various groups for the Baltimore unrest. But Sharpton currently owes the U.S. government more than $3 million in back taxes, according to reports. His excuses have ranged from insufficient funds to pay them to sloppy record-keeping and mysterious fires.

President Obama’s outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Congress today that the global security environment “is as uncertain as I’ve seen in 40 years of service.”

Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for the last time, Gen. Martin Dempsey added that “we are at a point where our global aspirations are exceeding our available resources.”

“We’ve heard the Congress of the United States loud and clear that we have to become more efficient and we have to do the rigorous strategic thinking to determine the minimum essential requirements that we believe — that is to say, the uniform military — are essential to protect our national interests across the globe,” he said, testifying for a budget proposal that “represents a responsible combination of capability, capacity and readiness. But we are at the bottom edge of our manageable risk in achieving and fulfilling our national security strategy, as it is currently designed.”

De Blasio Gearing Up to Release Nationwide ‘Progressive Agenda’ By Bridget Johnson

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he’s borrowing from the tactics of Newt Gingrich in putting forward a left-wing version of the Contract with America: The Progressive Agenda.It will be unveiled on May 12 on the steps of the Capitol with lawmakers at his side from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“The bottom line here is that we are in a moment of history where we need to hear a clear vision for addressing the economic reality. A number of us have put together such a vision that’s going to go right at the question of income and equality, which I think is the crisis of our times,” de Blasio told MSNBC this morning, adding the plan will include “raising the minimum wage, providing the kinds of benefits families need like paid sick leave that are rare for many families.”

Last March 17th, Benjamin Netanyahu won big in the Israeli elections. His own right-of-center Likud Party came out well ahead of the pack with 30 Knesset seats (out of 120). The right-wing/religious bloc of parties came out with 67, compared to 40 seats for the left-wing parties (an Arab party that is unfriendly to Israel as a Jewish state rounded it out with 13 seats).

Yet, on Wednesday night, after 42 days of grueling coalition negotiations, Netanyahu squeaked through two hours before an extended deadline with a 61-member coalition — that is, razor-thin and the smallest possible.

How did it happen?

For one thing, reportedly, Netanyahu offered a place in the coalition to his opposite number Isaac Herzog, leader of the center-left Zionist Union that came in second in the elections with 24 seats, and was rebuffed.