RUTHFULLY YOURS

Usually, when you think of going to the movies, it’s something fun or adventurous, sci-fi dazzle or romantic razzle, something you can immerse yourself in harmlessly for a few hours while nibbling on popped kernels of your favorite salty air-popped corn snack.

And it is slightly gruesome to see films like this, which are thinly scripted true stories of a grisly episode in Paris 2006. It was there that a telephone salesperson, lured into a honeypot assignation by a pretty moll of one of the gang men paid to seduce a specific fellow, captured the prey a gang of thugs in the banlieux were seeking: A single male, Jewish, abductable for money from his presumably “rich Jewish family.”

The entire sordid plan was premised on the absurd belief that every Jewish family, you name them, has millions stashed away, ready to convert into liquid assets and cash at the drop of a cell phone call.

In his State-of-the-Union address, president Obama again confirmed that “saving the climate” remains one of his top priorities. Yet an official December 2014 confab in Lima, Peru didn’t really conclude anything — certainly no binding Protocol to limit emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) — but it “kicked the can down the road” to the next international gabfest in Paris, scheduled for 2015.

The world is looking forward to the 21st annual COP (conference of the parties to the global climate treaty), which will be held in Paris in December of 2015. It is hoped by many that Paris will end up with a climate protocol that will continue and even surpass the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which expired in 2012 and achieved practically nothing except to waste hundreds of billions that might have been better spent addressing genuine world problems — without accomplishing its main goal of reducing global emissions of the much-maligned greenhouse gas CO2. On the contrary, emissions rose — mainly from greatly increased industrial growth in China, which was fueled primarily by coal-fired power plants. At the same time, of course, global agriculture benefited from these higher levels of CO2, which is a natural plant fertilizer; the starving of the world really owe a vote of thanks to China.

Ill-defined federal laws now reach into virtually every sphere of human behavior, and thus prosecutors can destroy almost anyone they choose. The recent indictment of Senator Robert Menendez on 14 counts of corruption and “honest services” fraud is a troubling case in point that deserves more than a little skepticism.

Mr. Menendez is accused of doing government favors for his friend Salomon Melgen, a Palm Beach ophthalmologist and Democratic Party benefactor, in return for vacations and campaign cash. Justice’s quid pro quo tale is often sleazy—Brazilian actresses feature prominently—and Mr. Menendez’s conduct won’t enhance the reputation of Congress. But the quids and quos Justice identifies aren’t illegal on their own—and the indictment never gets to the pro part.

Mr. Menendez is seen, for example, supporting visa applications for Dr. Melgen’s overseas girlfriends and urging the State Department not to undermine a port-security contract that a company Dr. Melgen acquired had signed with the Dominican Republic. But it is not unusual for elected officials to intercede on behalf of constituents and allies. The term for this is representative government.

Dr. Melgen is seen cutting checks to Mr. Menendez’s campaign, the New Jersey Democratic Party and a Super PAC working for the Senator’s 2012 re-election. But then these election-year donations were legal and disclosed, Dr. Melgen supported Democratic causes nationwide, and donors are allowed to give to politicians whose positions are aligned with their interests.

Hillary has a size-of-government fight on her hands.

Republican activists strapping on body armor for the impending presidential campaign may get what they’ve been itching for—the Battle of Washington. That would be the long struggle between Big Government and whatever remnants of individual liberty haven’t disappeared inside the federal maw of rules, laws, programs or prosecutions.

To conservatives this is the Leviathan state, an opponent normally thrashed in 400-page books. In real life, the federal Leviathan simply expands annually. This election could be different, with the fight over the size of government finally ending up in the streets. Several reasons why:

Among many careerists and politicians, tweaking one’s ethnic identity is becoming increasingly widespread.
Not long ago, the New York Times uncovered the artifact that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush had once listed himself as “Hispanic” on a Florida voter-registration form. Bush is married to a Mexican American. He lived for a number of years in South America and speaks Spanish fluently. Maybe he has consciously assumed a Hispanic identity. Or perhaps he did not think there was much of a difference between “white” and “Hispanic.” Or, as he said, he simply checked the wrong box by accident.

Which presidential candidate is most likely to be tripped up by their position on the Common Core?

Jeb Bush comes to mind, of course. Yet the candidate whose support for Common Core could be most personally perilous—and most consequential for the larger 2016 race—is Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, Clinton effectively endorsed the Common Core.

Yes, she threw a bone to liberal opponents of Common Core by calling on teachers to “lead the way” in further developing these national standards. It’s obvious from Clinton’s overall remarks, however, that she supports Common Core.

Senator Jeff Sessions comes under fire for his reasonable proposal. It’s hard to take New York Times editorials seriously, given their parodic parochialism and cluelessness.

Rebutting one feels almost like writing a non-ironic letter to the editor of The Onion. Its commentary on immigration is probably worse than on other topics, and arguably more harmful. In an analysis of “How Arthur Sulzberger Radicalized the New York Times Editorial Page on Immigration,” my colleague (and Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter) Jerry Kammer wrote: “But the Times has carried its good intentions to a destructive extreme.

Its editorials have poisoned the national discussion of a complex and emotional issue.” And the venom continues to flow. It’s no surprise that the Times’ latest hiss on immigration attacks Senator Jeff Sessions. Specifically, Sessions penned a sober op-ed in the Washington Post the other day arguing that “America needs to curb immigration flows,” meaning not just better controls at the borders but also lower levels of future legal immigration: What we need now is immigration moderation: slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together. I happen to agree, but one could certainly offer a thoughtful rebuttal. Not the Times, though. In Times World, Sessions “worries darkly” about the effects of immigration, choosing “to echo an uglier time in our history” by making “a case for yanking America’s welcome mat.” I assume an editor removed the references to Hitler.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Holy See of ignoring the pain suffered by Muslims and Turks. Cavusoglu did not say why Muslims and Turks tend to ignore the pain suffered by other faiths and other nations.

Such political controversies as the Pope’s speech always offer golden opportunities to Turkish officials who would not miss exploiting them in order to look pretty to an Islamist government and hope for a brighter career.

It seems as if Turkey’s ruling politicians are in a race to look less and less convincing to an already suspicious international audience. How they defended their ancestors’ sins a century ago earned them new points in the race, and made them look even more odd than before.

Russia and China have also agreed to build nuclear plants for Iran. And North Korea has also been supplying Iran with technology, a “minor detail” hidden from the UN by U.S. President Barack Obama. And the U.S. thinks that if Iran is caught cheating, sanctions can be re-imposed?

Other countries in the region have already started scheduling delivery for their nuclear weapons. They have made it clear they will not sit idly by while Iran goes nuclear.

Iran has already bragged that it will sell “enriched uranium” on the open market, and will be “hopefully making some money” from it, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

No agreement was signed between Iran and the P5+1 group[1] on April 2; no agreement will be signed on June 30.

It’s become habitual for movies to pair ordinary (Ben Stiller) or geeky (Adam Driver) comedic men with unusually beautiful women like Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried. Of course we would accept this if these men were playing the movie stars they actually are but that type of unbalanced casting starts us off being incredulous when the males are playing losers (Ben Stiller) or wannabes (Adam Driver). The latter is more than a foot taller than Stiller yet there’s a scene where Ben dons Adam’s jacket and roller-blades – both of which fit perfectly. It’s a minor moment but another peg for the incredulity board which is disconcerting in a movie that purports to poke fun in the mores of contemporary urban twenty and forty-somethings. If the object of the poke isn’t recognizably authentic, there’s no stuffing in the satire.