RUTHFULLY YOURS

As head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano followed the U.S. government’s official practice of refusing to negotiate with hostage-takers. As head of the University of California system, she has become the hostage-taker.

Napolitano is demanding that the cash-strapped state of California pony up an additional $100 million for the UC system, and she threatens to inflict a 5 percent tuition hike on students for each of the next five years in retaliation if Sacramento does not comply. This puts her on the wrong side of Governor Jerry Brown, who by being eternally fixed in anno Domini 1978 has become, strangely enough, the face of relative fiscal sanity as the rest of California rushes headlong into madness. It is easy to make too much of Governor Brown’s relative fiscal conservatism — much of the state’s purported budget miracle is the result of simply putting off necessary pension payments — but the Honorable Governor Moonbeam is here in the right: California is not out of the fiscal woods by any stretch of the imagination, and it cannot afford what Napolitano is demanding.

On the subject of what higher-education expenses California can afford: Napolitano is paid just shy of $600,000 a year in salary, along with $8,916 annually in car expenses, and a $142,500 relocation grant. Even in that tax bracket, she apparently cannot afford to live in the Bay Area, so the university system rents her a home at ten grand a month. And the usual shenanigans — a six-figure outlay to study whether unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook; similar expenses for Robosquirrel, “a taxidermied actual squirrel that is stored with live squirrels so it smells real” — turn up with diurnal predictability.

How much could it actually cost to provide California students with a first-rate college education? The answer — as predictable as the dawn of Robosquirrel — is this: Nobody knows. If there is one thing that government institutions excel at, it is ensuring that they do not know that which they do not wish to know. (E.g., How prevalent is sex-selective abortion in the United States?) The bundle of things that the University of California system does is large and complex, and a great many of them — most of them, by some calculations — do not have anything directly to do with undergraduate education.

John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams was the sixth President of the United States. He had one term and in 1828 lost to Andrew Jackson.After leaving office he was elected a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and served for 17 years where he was a strident and articulate opponent of slavery.Prior to his election as President Adams had a distinguished career as diplomat- negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated the northern border with Canada, and the annexation of Florida, and drafted the Monroe Doctrine.with Britain over the United States’ northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, and drafted the Monroe Doctrine. rsk

John Quincy Adams: ‘Emigrants from Germany or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments.’

We often hear about the glory days of immigration when America threw open her arms to the huddled masses, but one thing you don’t hear about is how those people had to make it on their own without a government safety net. There was plenty of private charity, which was highly encouraged, but health care, a minimum-wage job, college entrance, housing, legal representation, and education certainly weren’t promised—not like today.

In 1819, John Quincy Adams wrote a letter as secretary of State under President James Monroe to a man named von Fiirstenwarther, who had written a report about emigration in Germany and wanted the U.S. government to give him a job if he immigrated to the United States from his native country. The letter gives great insight into attitudes about immigration at a time when it was becoming a serious issue; the nation was in a financial crisis because banks were printing too much money, and the country was expanding at an overwhelming rate. Jobs weren’t as easy to come by as they had been in the past (sound familiar?). The idea of immigrants receiving government subsistence was nonsensical. The borders were open, but it was up to each individual to make his or her own way in the New World. Americans then valued personal responsibility and liberty more highly than security and public welfare.

Adam’s letter reveals this fact like nothing else. It is difficult to find (it was printed in Niles’ Weekly Register, Volume 18, in 1820), and it would be a surprise if most politicians today have even read it—but they should.

Here it is, in full (italics added). Let its wisdom be a lesson for today as we throw open our borders to the poor in an age of government largesse.
The Letter from John Quincy Adams

Sir—I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 22nd April, enclosing one from your kinsman, the Baron de Gagern, and a copy of your printed report, which I hope and have no doubt will be useful to those of your countrymen in Germany, who may have entertained erroneous ideas, with regard to the results of emigration from Europe to this country.

Nothing in history or current reality could possibly lead an honest observer to conclude that there’s a viable path to peace between Palestinians and Israel. Barring some dramatic exogenous event, this isn’t about to change. Give it up.

After the murder of five Jews Israelis (three of them American citizens and one of them a Druze) this week, “people fired celebratory gunshots in the air … and praise for God and the attackers poured from mosque loudspeakers soon after the synagogue shooting,” reported The New York Times. Fatah officials in Lebanon chimed in to let us know that: “Jerusalem needs blood in order to purify itself of Jews.” There were congratulatory message on Fatah’s official Facebook page and festive post-murder spree sweets for the kids. This celebration of death—whether dead babies or dead rabbis, it matters not—doesn’t only illustrate the colossal moral gulf that exists between these societies, it reminds us that any Palestinian government inclined to entertain a viable agreement with Jews wouldn’t last long, anyway.

Fatah, the thin thread that any workable agreement hangs on, is only in power because it refuses to hold elections. (And, to be fair, when you lose a campaign in Palestinian territories, there are no comebacks.) But even this more moderate faction brings with it archaic menu of nonstarters to the table. Arabs will not have meaningful control over Jerusalem proper. Or any “right of return.” Or the ability to control their borders as Sweden or Argentina controls theirs. At least, not any time soon. These are intractable disagreements. Every time the sides revisit the negotiations, it ends in disappointment and, inevitably, violence. And with each round, Palestinian society devolves further, becoming increasingly radicalized and violent. So what’s the point?

Barack Obama wants peace. But as always, after a round of failed talks, there is terrorism. The tensions in Jerusalem today—and by tensions, I mean the indiscriminate killing of Jews over the past weeks—are driven, in part, by a conspiracy theory that posits Israelis are about to occupy the Temple Mount. Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas has used the tension to agitate his people, reportedly urging Palestinians to prevent Jewish “settlers” (and by settler he means any Jews) from entering the Temple Mount and “fierce onslaught on Al-Aksa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre Church.”

For most of the modern era, the Republican party has been identified with a strong national defense. Through most of the Cold War, the GOP dominated the Democrats in polling on which of the two was to be trusted more on matters of the country’s security. And while Republicans’ reputation on defense suffered significantly in the 2000s, the party is recapturing much of its credibility on these issues with a public worried not only by the immediate threats of ISIS and Ebola but also by the palpable sense that the world is becoming a more unstable and dangerous place. With their message of the need for a potent military and the importance of a clear-eyed and resolute approach to threats, the new Republican majority in the Senate and the expanded majority in the House are well positioned to regain the national-security leadership mantle.

But this favorable political trend should not be taken as a reason for just doing more of the same. For while the Republicans are usually considered the more hawkish party, the deeper reason for their long-term ascendancy on defense issues is that voters have seen them as more serious in dealing with defense. Republicans have been most successful, in other words, when they have earned the reputation for being the more responsible party on defense — the sober experts on the matter — and not simply for always preferring the more hawkish course. Of course, being the more serious party has often meant being tougher on security issues than the Democrats. But the most successful Republican presidents have prevailed over their opponents — the Adlai Stevensons, George McGoverns, Walter Mondales, Michael Dukakises — by being seen as more trustworthy with the nation’s security rather than simply being bellicose. Republicans have been at their best when they have been seen as smart hawks rather than just reflexive ones.

Voters on Election Day chose Tim Scott as South Carolina’s U.S. senator. They also sent Utah’s Mia Love and Texas’s Will Hurd to the U.S. House of Representatives. Thus, the 114th Congress will include three black Republicans. This is a new high-water mark for black Americans.

Too bad the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People couldn’t care less. (America’s oldest civil-rights organization still plasters that retrograde expression all over its logo and website.)

NAACP has yet to congratulate, acknowledge, or even attack Scott, Love, and Hurd — now America’s three most powerful elected black Republicans. What you hear is the silence of the Colored People. Despite ten separate requests for comment on this “advancement of colored people,” I could not squeeze a consonant out of NAACP’s Baltimore headquarters, its Washington, D.C., office, or even its Hollywood bureau.

NAACP president Cornell William Brooks did say on November 5, “This election was not about who won but rather the citizens who lost the right to participate.” Despite complaints about malfunctioning polling machines and voters blocked for lack of photo ID, one wonders where NAACP is hiding these disenfranchised citizens. Why have we heard as much about them since November 5 as NAACP has said about Scott, Love, and Hurd?

NAACP did issue a November 14 press release expressing its “strong support of the new Qualified Residential Mortgage rule” under the behemoth Dodd-Frank financial-services law. The group praised the rejection of new down-payment rules for home loans. Who needs strong credit standards? What could go wrong?

NAACP has offered communiqués praising Obama’s new draconian carbon dioxide regulations and even applauding La June Montgomery Tabron for becoming president of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. As for three black Republicans getting elected to Congress? Crickets.

What a disgrace.

Jonathan Gruber’s disdain for the proverbial masses is thematic of the last six years.

Last week, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Jonathan Gruber, one of prominent architects of Obamacare, was exposed as little more than an elitist fraud.

Gruber was caught on videotape expressing the haughty attitude that drove the Affordable Care Act, deriding the “stupidity” of Americans as a way to justify misleading them.

Gruber apparently thinks such deception is okay because yokel voters could not handle the truth about the looming chaos he helped to engineer in their health coverage.

Unfortunately, Gruber’s disdain for the proverbial masses — he was paid nearly $400,000 in consulting fees — is thematic of the last six years.

Another master-of-the-universe drafter of Obamacare was Ezekiel Emanuel. He scoffed on national television that the number of people covered by Obamacare at that point was “irrelevant.”

Emanuel also drew attention for his recent adolescent rant in a men’s magazine about the desirability of everyone dying at 75 to save society the expense of maintaining what he sees as the unproductive elderly.

Former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi lectured of Obamacare that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” The same elitist message reverberates: that government and academic elites are smarter than average Americans, and so need not explain what they are doing.

This is a pattern of Obama administration ruling elites who express disdain or lack of concern about the people they are supposed to serve. Former energy secretary Steven Chu made a series of astounding statements about energy use, the most inane being that America would be better off if gas costs soared to Europe’s sky-high prices.

Who can forget the Obama acceptance speech in 2008 on a football field in Denver, the nominee standing amid Greek columns and scrolling through a long list of goals to 84,000 Democrats? That was the high. Six years later, the Democrats get the hangover. On Thursday, Mr. Obama will announce his presidency’s only declaration of war—against the Republicans. After describing how he will redesign the U.S. immigration system on his own authority, he’ll fly Friday to Las Vegas.

The remaining two years will be irregular warfare, with Mr. Obama deploying his weapon of choice, the executive order. This essentially turns the presidency into a cruise missile: The president tells the country what to do, and the country does it.

Before the U.S. political system goes to the mattresses, I’d like to spend a moment discussing Jonathan Gruber, ObamaCare and the American people.

Jon Gruber is the now-famous ObamaCare designer and explainer-for-hire who said the Affordable Care Act became law because the American people were too stupid to understand what was in it.

Within days, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were throwing Jon Gruber down the memory hole. You bet they were. The Gruber incident poses a direct threat to the Democratic Party.

Jon Gruber’s remarks matter not for what they say about the Democratic Party’s modus operandi but because of the truths he revealed about the Democratic Party’s reason for being. The Gruber threat to the Democrats isn’t reputational; it’s existential.

The Democrats have believed for decades that if they build it—a health-care entitlement or any other federal bestowment—the voters will come. That political model is cracking.

Villagers from the Cévennes cooperated to save thousands of innocents wanted by the Nazis and their French collaborators.

In 1934, when André Trocmé took up his new post as the Protestant pastor of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, an isolated, wind-swept village in the highlands of the Haute-Loire in the French Cévennes, he and his family could have been forgiven for ruing their luck. Enclosed by mountains and prey to heavy snows during the long winters, the village could be cut off from the outside world for weeks at a time. Trocmé’s new parishioners seemed to him “as grey as their granite farmhouses,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir. “They talked incessantly about death.” Not the most engaging qualities on the surface, but as the charismatic pastor eventually discovered, it would take a special kind of bullheadedness to defy the Nazis and their French collaborators in 1940-44.

The inhabitants of Le Chambon and its surrounding parishes in the non-Occupied Zone of south-central France would save thousands of lives during World War II: Communists, resisters, Freemasons and a large number of Jews, including hundreds of orphaned children and babies whose parents had been deported to the death camps, were all given vital refuge from the Gestapo and French Milice, the paramilitary force created in 1943 by the Vichy regime to combat the Resistance. Nearly everyone in the town cooperated to save these innocent strangers, Trocmé among them.

After the war, about 40 people from Le Chambon, including Trocmé and his wife, Magda, were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Center for Holocaust Research. A best-selling book, “Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed” (1979) by Philip Hallie, and an award-winning documentary film by Pierre Sauvage, “Weapons of the Spirit” (1987), were made about the extraordinary efforts of the people of Le Chambon. Now, in “Village of Secrets,” Caroline Moorehead delivers the definitive account of how and why they did what they did.

Jordan is a moderate Muslim country.

But it’s not exactly surprising. This would be the Jordanian parliament which fought any effort to criminalize honor killings and which called for the release of a Jordanian soldier who murdered seven Israeli teenage girls. With good reason. Jordan was the original “Palestine”.

After the brutal murder of four Rabbis, this story via Elder of Ziyon comes as no surprise at all.

On Wednesday, Jordan’s parliament offered a prayer in honor of the spirit of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Uday Abu Jamal – the terrorists who slaughtered five people.

The prayer was held as the House of representatives session opened.

MP Khalil Attieh requested his fellow representatives to recite the Fatiha for the “spirit of the heroes.”

The Fatiha is the first chapter of the Koran, recited on important occasions.

Attieh further declared that the murders were a “natural reaction to the occupation crimes against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinians.”

In addition, MP Mohammed Al-Qatathh of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the assembly condemning the “Zionist attack on Jerusalem and its people” in the wake of “the heroic operation” on the synagogue in Har Nof.

Obama’s excuse for his illegal amnesty will be that the immigration system is “broken” forcing him to act. But when Obama says that the system is broken, he means that some parts of it still work and so he intends to break immigration all the way through to benefit his own corrupt political allies.

That will hurt his own voters the most, but the Democratic Party has a notoriously masochistic relationship with its voting base. It beats them up and then it gaslights them by hugging them and telling them that it was really the mean Republicans who punched them in the face.

When African-American unemployment rates rise, the workers who can’t find jobs because of all the brand new DREAMERs won’t blame the White House, they’ll blame the evil Republicans for income inequality, assuming Sharpton manages to read the term correctly from his MSNBC teleprompter.

According to Obama our immigration system is broken because it doesn’t allow illegal aliens who illegally crossed the border to take American jobs. That’s not a broken system, that’s what the system is supposed to do.

When illegal aliens aren’t allowed to legally take American jobs, that’s how you know the immigration system is working.

In the language of progressivism, helping means ruining and fixing means breaking. A system that fulfills any useful purpose must be reformed out of all usefulness. If the tattered shreds of the immigration system still keep a single Democratic voter from legally cashing a welfare check and casting a vote, then immigration must be reformed and helped and fixed until it is completely destroyed.

The immigration system is broken because it was reformed so many times that it makes as much sense as an outhouse on a space shuttle. Its main function now is to bring millions of people without jobs to a country where millions are out of work. Obama wants to fix that by adding millions more people.