RUTHFULLY YOURS

A tragic history is no excuse for a failed future.

Western celebrities, aid organizations and ex-presidents have spent generations trying to fix Africa, rarely to good or lasting effect. So kudos to President Obama for encouraging Africans to take charge of their own fate and fix themselves.

Speaking on Sunday in Kenya, Mr. Obama acknowledged Africa’s bleak history, from the racism his grandfather suffered as a cook for the British during the colonial era—“he was referred to as a boy, even though he was a grown man”—to the ethnic violence that erupted after a disputed election in 2007. But he argued that history is no excuse for a failed future.

Syria cheated on its chemical commitments. Iran will cheat on its nuclear ones. Obama provides cover for both.

Once upon a time Barack Obama chose multilateral diplomacy over military action for the sake of ridding a dangerous Middle Eastern regime of its weapons of mass destruction. The critics mocked and raged and muttered, but everything worked out well and now the only thing that’s missing is someone who will give the president credit.

Or so Mr. Obama would like you to believe.

“You’ll recall that that was the previous end of my presidency,” Mr. Obama told the New Yorker’s David Remnick of his September 2013 deal to get Syria’s Bashar Assad to hand over his WMD stockpile, “until it turned out that we are actually getting all the chemical weapons. And no one reports on that anymore.”

Nor were these the only hosannas the president and his advisers sang to themselves for the Syria deal. “With 92.5% of the declared chemical weapons out of the country,” said Susan Rice in May 2014, the U.S. had achieved more than any “number of airstrikes that might have been contemplated would have done.” John Kerry also boasted of his diplomatic prowess in a March 2015 speech: “We cut a deal and were able to get all the chemical weapons out of Syria in the middle of the conflict.”

Sofian Zakkout is defiant in his support for terror and bigotry.

This month, FrontPage Magazine published a piece by this author discussing how Miami, Florida Islamist Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, while sitting on a number of boards for anti-crime institutions, is an organizer of pro-Hamas rallies and propagates material from Hamas and white supremacist David Duke on his Facebook and YouTube pages. Zakkout has responded by posting more material from Hamas and David Duke on Facebook and YouTube.

Sofian Zakkout was born in Gaza, grew up in Kuwait, and moved to the United States in 1977. Today, he runs two semi-prominent organizations based in South Florida, the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), which he incorporated in September 1999, and American Muslims for Emergency and Relief (AMER), which he incorporated in September 2004.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for another round of America’s hottest game show, “Poor Obama”.

Poor Obama. Why is everyone being so mean to him? No seriously, Obama would like to know.

“We’ve had a sitting senator call John Kerry ‘Pontius Pilate.’ We’ve had a sitting senator who also happens to be running for president suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said, referring to Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ted Cruz of Texas, respectively. “These are leaders in the Republican Party.”

The left never admits that it lied, that its claims were baseless and that it’s just pursuing racial divisiveness for political power. Michael Brown is still a martyr and Ferguson is still a hotbed of racism despite the fact that the case was thoroughly shot down. The autopsy of Sandra Bland showed the case was baseless.

So the left just doubles down.

Loretta Lynch, the new Eric Holder, is talking about “policing techniques” and the “frustration of minority communities.” Just as with the Michael Brown case, having their lies disproved doesn’t even give them pause.

The United States ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1969 after the U.S. Senate advised ratification in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, and the treaty went into effect in 1970. Can the administration issue by itself an order that conflicts with that treaty?

This question has not been raised, much less answered. The Iran Deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and signed by the administration, conflicts repeatedly with U.S. obligations as a signatory of the NPT.

The issue is not whether the executive can without a treaty enter into agreements with foreign governments. Of course it can. That happens often from negotiating minor details of landing rights to major agreements. But these executive agreements are done consistent with treaty obligations, or certainly not in conflict with them. The Iran Deal conflicts with the NPT.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm turns 70 on August 17, but the occasion is more than a publishing anniversary. Decades after its release, the anti-Communist, anti-Stalinist classic reveals a dynamic of the left often overlooked but still playing out daily.

In Orwell’s tale, old Major, Mr. Jones’ prize boar, makes his famous speech about the oppression of farm animals by human beings. While Major was speaking, “four large rats crept out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquarters listening to him.” The dogs chased them off, but the incident prompted Major to pose a question: “Are rats comrades?” The vote was taken at once, “and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades.”

Rats, also known as criminals, are very much at home on the revolutionary left, as Orwell knew from Stalin, a bank robber, gangster and mass murderer. Such criminals do not shun violent action against political opponents, which is why, in leftist regimes, the worst tend to get on top. F.A. Hayek explained that reality in The Road to Serfdom, published a year before Animal Farm, when Stalinism was the rage. But there’s more to this than history.

The wheels of justice are finally turning — but it doesn’t mean Hillary will be held to account.

The U.S. Department of Justice has been asked to open a criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information in emails she sent through her unauthorized, insecure private email server.

Whether such a probe, if it happens, will actually accomplish anything is a separate question. That’s because the DoJ is headed by Obama appointee Loretta Lynch who is essentially a carbon copy of her predecessor, the corrupt Eric Holder, a man who was held in contempt by the U.S. House of Representatives and who came close to getting impeached for misconduct in office.

If Obama wants, Lynch, who has longstanding ties to the Clintons, will run interference for Clinton in order to minimize damage to Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nod. Lynch could stonewall and obfuscate in order to run out the clock for the Obama administration which has only about 18 months remaining in office. And it is also far from clear whether Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers of Congress, will have enough spine to press their political advantage on the issue of Clinton’s email malfeasance that more than likely put U.S. national security in jeopardy.

Imagine: you are window-shopping on a quiet street, perhaps in London or Paris or New York. Something remarkable catches your eye: an ancient coin, a gold chain, a tiny figurine. Impulsively, you enter the shop, where the owner explains to you that the sculpture comes originally from Mesopotamia, that the necklace is Byzantine. It isn’t inexpensive, but the shopkeeper has guaranteed its provenance and the price seems fair; and besides, you quite love it. You say yes, and leave the shop with your new treasure tucked safely in a bag.

You may have just handed your money over to the Islamic State.

According to antiquities experts and members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the plundering and sale of ancient artifacts from Syria and Iraq has become big business for the Islamic State (ISIS), contributing significantly, as the Guardian reports, to the income stream that has “made it the most cash-rich terror group in the world.” Indeed, according to NBC News, “Antiquity plundering – particularly from violence-riddled Syria and Iraq – fuels a $7 billion black market, and some of that money lands in the pockets of terrorists.”

Adam Andrzejewski is the Chairman of American Transparency and founder of the transparency website OpenTheBooks.com. This editorial reviews information collected via FOIA from the IL Attorney General. Read our Forbes profile: IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s ‘Friends and Family’ $1 Million Patronage Pay Problem(s).

She’s allowed felons to serve in municipal office; out-of-towners to serve as city alderman; many politicians to hold multiple – and conflicting – offices; a junior college to award more than $4 million in compensation to its president without a lawful board vote; and much more…

Lisa Madigan – daughter of power Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan – first ran for attorney general in 2002 vowing, “It’s time that Illinois’ highest legal official takes an active, hands-on role in cleaning up government. And I will not let them down.”

Madigan said she’d even prosecute her father if he were corrupt. It was tough language and a high promise.

Our organization, American Transparency (OpenTheBooks.com) fact checked her campaign promise. After ten years in office, Lisa Madigan had prosecuted only fourteen public officials for corruption: half were for DUI, reckless driving, or substance possession and she lost close to half of those cases. That’s an appalling record in a state with 7,000 units of government.