RUTHFULLY YOURS

—Mr. Rieber is a writer in Oregon covering ranching and rural Americana.
Document the West in a seamless blend of scientific rigor and literary color.

On an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve in 1844, 25 men led by Lt. John C. Frémont trekked their way south and east from Lake Abert across a vast, undulating plain of sagebrush and into the Warner Valley, in present day Lake County, Ore. They encamped along the marshy shores of a shallow body of water now known as Hart Lake. The lake shelters at the foot of Hart Mountain, which forms the apex of a massive fault block looming high above the scrub and sage like a dark and mighty prow, cleaving the desert.

There, in Hart Mountain’s stern shadow, Frémont’s men roused the camp on Christmas morning with celebratory rifle fire and a salvo from their howitzer, while Frémont distributed small quantities of brandy, coffee and sugar to mark the first Christmas ever celebrated in this remote, uncharted district. “The country has a very forbidding appearance,” wrote Frémont in his journal, “presenting to the eye nothing but sage and barren ridges.”

Why the Speaker’s controversial invitation is a good idea.

House Speaker John Boehner has invited Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to address Congress on April 29. April 29 is Japan’s Showa Day, the annual celebration of Emperor Hirohito, whose militarism led to the Pacific half of the Second World War. The invitation has invited a minor scandal, irking people who remember that Japan’s behavior during World War II was just as vicious, depraved, and inhuman as the behavior of the Germans and the Russians. However, Boehner’s invitation is a good idea, and fits with longstanding American policy. A number of veterans’ groups have objected — and who can blame them?

During the war, the Japanese murdered, tortured, vivisected, even cannibalized American prisoners. Captured Americans were used for forced labor, and were subject to unbelievably sick medical experiments. Allied soldiers who survived Japanese prisoner-of-war camps emerged looking like walking skeletons; like survivors of Auschwitz. Beyond that, of course, is the savage rape-pillage-and-murder campaign Japan waged against China, Indochina, and every Pacific island it could get its hands on For sheer evil, no regime in history outstrips Japan’s government from 1930 to 1945. Hirohito, as god-emperor, was that government’s divine leader.

The details of the negotiations to nowhere are beside the point. We Met fans were thrilled by the brilliance of Matt Harvey, who tossed six shutout innings in his first start after missing 19 months due to elbow surgery. It reminded us, though, that “The Dark Knight” is going to demand a huge contract down the road.
It got me to daydreaming about the negotiations. Let’s say that, as the contract deadline approaches, Harvey says he wants $210 million over seven years — the going rate for pitching aces just set by the Washington Nationals’ Max Scherzer. The Mets’ ownership, the parsimonious Wilpon family, counters by offering five years at $15 million per. The two sides are not even close.

The deadline is about to strike midnight. Knowing his fan base will go ballistic and boycott Citi Field if their idol is not inked to a contract, a panicked Fred Wilpon calls a press conference. There, he waves around a blank sheet of paper. Only he insists that it’s not an empty page. It’s a framework! “Don’t worry fans, we have an agreement in principle,” the owner assures us. “We just have to work out a few, er . . . details.” Then I shake my head and realize: I’m not dreaming the nightmare of the Mets’ Harvey negotiations; I’m living the nightmare of Obama’s Iran negotiations.

There is not, nor has there ever been, an Iran deal. The “framework” the president announced last week was just a stunt. As yet another negotiations deadline loomed with the president plainly unwilling to walk away despite Iranian intransigence, Congress appeared poised to end the farce by voting to stiffen sanctions. The “framework” is a feint designed to dissuade Congress and sustain the farce. In reality, what we have is simply an Obama administration assumption and a timetable. The assumption is that Iran will become a nuclear-weapons power.

Whenever a prominent political figure is indicted on charges of alleged corruption, serious questions arise. Is the prosecution part of a growing and dangerous trend toward criminalizing policy differences? Does it endanger the free speech rights of contributors? Will it constrain the legislative branch from serving as a check and balance on the executive?

These questions are now being raised in the context of the prosecution of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, as they previously were in several other ill-advised prosecutions including those of former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, former presidential candidate John Edwards, the late Senator Ted Stevens, former Congressman Tom Delay and former Texas governor Rick Perry.

The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an assemblage of Muslim Brotherhood organizations and operatives, will embark on our nation’s capital on April 13th for a day of advocacy.The objective of USCMO is to lobby 1/3 to 1/2 of the members of Congress and announce and establish their presence as a Muslim political force in America. The USCMO aims to rally their constituents in the American Muslim community to push for a strong Muslim Brotherhood presence in American politics.As an outgrowth of CAIR’s Project M (“M” for Mobilize), which was established in Chicago in 2010, the plan is to develop the political skills of younger generations of Muslims to run for local and government offices at all levels – everything from library council and school board membership to congressional positions and governorships.

(NOTE: This is NOT a new activity and has been in place for decades. (Witness the prominence of MB political operatives and organizations in American politics since the 1960s). What’s DIFFERENT and special about April 13th is that this is a FORMAL, PUBLIC announcement of formerly stealth jihad tactics). Yes, they are less circumspect and expect to be in your face now). Janet Levy

US Jihadi Political Party to Blitz Capitol Hill Next Week

April 13, 2015 is “Muslim Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill.
The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) will spend Monday and Tuesday of next week on Capitol Hill advocating their position as the first national Muslim political party.

“Nothing propinks like propinquity.”

So remarked Felix Leiter to James Bond in Ian Fleming’s fourth Bond novel, Diamonds are Forever. It was propinquitous that someone at Pegasus Books thought that I’d reviewed another of Fleming’s books, For Your Eyes Only, a collection of five of Fleming’s short stories featuring Bond, and queried me about reviewing Matthew Parker’s newly released Goldeneye, Where Bond was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica. I hadn’t reviewed Eyes Only anywhere, but asked Pegasus to send Mr. Parker’s book on anyway.

Last night I was at Carnegie Hall for a remarkable jazz event. Two septuagenarians – jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea gave a joint performance to a packed house. Herbie Hancock was dressed in a stylish suit and Chick Corea was in his requisite jeans, but when they sat down and played the magic started.

I love classical music and musical comedy- but there is something about jazz that is so uniquely American and when the two great pianists got together last night it was dazzling and breathtaking and fun. Every age, every race, every gender was represented in the cheering crowd. It was impossible to avoid finger snapping and foot stomping when those two improvised. They invited participation from a willing audience who hummed, sang, clapped and jammed…What a great break from all the gloomy news..rsk

The president who thinks there’s such a thing as an “Austrian” language is advising Rand Paul to “bone up on foreign policy.” It’s now official: the Obama administration has become a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live.

This is the same Barack Obama who became president after 2 indifferent years in the Senate, which were preceded by stints as a state legislator, a part-time teacher of law, and a community organizer. In the Senate his scanty foreign policy experience and knowledge manifested itself in his 2007 opposition to the “surge” of forces in Iraq, which he called a “mistake” and a “reckless escalation,” comments followed up by the introduction of legislation to remove all forces by the end of March 2008 no matter what.

The surge, of course, was a rousing success, reducing violence and disorder in Iraq and creating the conditions for further political stability. Handed this victory on taking office, Obama then squandered it by failing to sign a status of forces agreement just so he could brag that he ended the war and brought all of our troops home. The sequel can be seen in northern Iraq, where ISIS rapes, plunders, murders, beheads, and enslaves across territory our splendid soldiers had bled and died to win.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, represents everything the Jewish left hates.

He’s a lifelong Republican, a former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan and a former member of Reagan’s cabinet. Baker’s positions on hot button social and political issues are the exact opposite of the positions taken by liberal-minded Jewish Democrats.

Yet there was Baker delivering the keynote address at J Street’s national conference in late March, the most prominent left-wing Jewish group in America.

How is that possible?

The answer is that James Baker and J Street have found one issue on which they can agree, and they are both so obsessed with that issue that they are willing to set aside their many and extreme differences, in order to join forces in their common cause: blasting Israel.

Before Global Warming posters hung on the dingy walls of American classrooms, the atomic bomb was the original Great Bogeyman of the left. Nothing quite so demonstrated the madness of our war machine as our willingness to deploy weapons of mass destruction to stop Communism in its tracks.

The self-righteous antics over nuclear weapons in literature, art, film, at protests and in papers are far too numerous to document. But you can still spot the occasional clunker with “One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day” or “You can’t hug a child with nuclear arms” peeling off one lopsided bumper.

Just don’t expect its owner to oppose Iran’s nuclear program over its day-ruining hug-denying nature.