RUTHFULLY YOURS

For over 30 years on American television, and before that on radio, the premier game show was called “Truth or Consequences”. For about 20 years, it was hosted by the ever-popular Bob Barker.

On the show, contestants received roughly two seconds to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly, or a bad joke) before “Beulah the Buzzer” sounded. If, as was almost always the case, the contestant could not complete the “Truth” portion, there would be “Consequences,” usually a zany and embarrassing stunt. From the start, most contestants preferred to answer the question wrong in order to perform the stunt. Said the show’s producer Ralph Edwards, “Most of the American people are darned good sports.”

In many broadcasts, the stunts on Truth or Consequences included a segment with a popular, but emotional, heart-rending surprise for a contestant, that being the reunion with a long-lost relative or with an enlisted son or daughter returning from military duty overseas, particularly Vietnam.

Bob Barker would sign off the show by saying “I hope all your consequences are happy ones.”

It is my contention that in this sad era of Islamist terrorism, jihadism and attempts to form a “world-wide Caliphate”, (starting with a desire to remove the Jews from Israel, followed by a gradual demographic/migratory take-over of Europe and a myriad of mini-wars in Africa, the Philippines and other Asian countries where Muslims seek the submission of their neighbors), that the idea of accepting hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants to Canada and the United States, has some consequences, and these should be discussed, frankly and honestly.

On Tuesday I appeared at the US Senate at a hearing called by Senator Ted Cruz’s sub-committee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. Senator Cruz introduced me as “an international bestselling author, a Top Five jazz recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist”. In fact, at that moment, I was America’s Number One jazz vocalist, but I thought it was a bit early in the proceedings to jump up and demand the record be corrected.

You can read various accounts of this event across the Internet from one perspective or another. Among the climate wallahs, there is a lively back-and-forth at Judith Curry’s pad, at Anthony Watts’, Bishop Hill’s, and Junk Science. On the politics of it – ie, Republicans and Democrats – I have a couple of thoughts, one of which has to do with the 2016 election. But that is a separate subject, so I’ll leave it for another day.

There was an altercation underway as I entered the room, when two Greenpeace activists attempted to get in the face of Professor William Happer about something or other. You can see it here. It is, to be legalistic about it, witness-tampering, and a sadly appropriate start to a hearing that at least partly addressed the climate of intimidation in global-warming science.

As for the hours that followed, I’ll let the reports from all sides speak for themselves, and just make a couple of points. On the morning of the event, Senator Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat and Ranking Member, sent a message, warning me that I was obligated to “respect the decorum of the Senate”. I’ve been invited to Buckingham Palace, the White House and parliaments around the world, and nobody has ever felt it necessary to pre-issue such a warning. In the event, the US Senate has no “decorum” worthy of respect, as we’ll get to in a moment.

You can find my written testimony here. A few excerpts. First, the general overview:

Senator Sasse , formerly a college professor ran and won in 2014 on tough policy and principles…this is a man with a future in the Senate and in the country….rsk

Tonight, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) spoke on the Senate floor, criticizing Washington’s lack of urgency and seriousness in confronting the growing threat of militant Islam.
Remarks as prepared for delivery:

I rise today to speak about San Bernardino; about the decades-long fight that our free society now faces; and about our dangerous unwillingness to tell the truth about the nature of this battle – about who our enemy is.

We are at war.

The American people already know this. Our enemies obviously know this. It is only this town – where our so-called leaders dawdle and bicker, pander and misprioritize – it is only this town that seems confused. Washington ignores what it cannot escape.

And that is both a tragedy and a crisis. Because no war is winnable when you pretend that you are not even in one.

As Islamic terrorist attacks increase in the West, so, too, does the obfuscation of Middle East studies academia. By employing the predictable tropes of poverty, alienation, workplace violence, the need for gun control, bullying, “Islamophobia,” and other alleged Western ills, academics avoid assigning responsibility to the actual perpetrators or their Islamist ideology.

Such has been the reaction to the December 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, which authorities were slow to describe as a terrorist attack, despite early evidence that married shooters Syed Rizwan Farooq and Tashfeen Malik had radical sympathies, including with ISIS. This led to speculation that, not coincidentally, omitted the actual culprit.

Omid Safi, director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center, immediately jumped on the gun control bandwagon and – echoing President Obama’s recent gaffe following the latest Paris attacks – claimed that mass shootings occur only in the U.S.: “This is everyday [sic], everywhere in America – and no where [sic] else in the world.” He decried America’s “deadly fetish” and “gun obsession,” urging readers to “Stand up to #NRA,” as if the National Rifle Association’s adherence to 2nd Amendment rights were the cause of Islamic terrorism.