RUTHFULLY YOURS

There are many moments from the past 6 years that demonstrate the criminal incompetence of this president and his administration. But for me, Obama’s interview with GloZell––whose claim to YouTube fame comes from eating Cheerios in a bathtub filled with milk––represents best the essential emptiness, triviality, and sheer dumbness of this president. Imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 being interviewed by a carnival geek, and you can gauge just how low the most consequential political office in the world has sunk.

This interview, remember, took place the same time as problems requiring urgent presidential attention were escalating. Libya imploding, Iran inching toward a nuclear bomb, ISIS expanding in Syria and holding ground in northern Iraq, Iranian military assets active in Iraq, Yemen falling to an Iranian proxy terrorist group, another Iranian client, Bashar al Assad, strengthening his hold over Syria––and that’s just the Middle East. And don’t forget, the GloZell farce followed hard on Obama’s State of the Union address, a congeries of wishful thinking, narcissistic braggadocio, and outright-lies, a preposterous catalogue in which generous sprinklings of first-person-pronoun fairy dust transmuted every failure into an achievement

The theme of Obama’s last campaign was “Forward.” Having thoroughly alienated Republicans in Congress, he is boldly moving forward on his final mission of also alienating the Democrats.

It’s no secret that Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, now loathes Obama. But the conflict between Senate Democrats and Obama is approaching explosive temperatures. Senator Menendez accused Obama of parroting talking points out of Tehran as the Senate approaches a sanctions vote.

Obama has threatened to veto bills on Iran and Keystone, along with others, leading to a showdown in which Democrats will have to choose between Obama and electability. The last time Democrats chose wrongly they lost the Senate. Many of the survivors aren’t looking forward to another round of getting stomped on by an angry middle class tired of a thoughtless celebrity administration and its abuses.

How America’s first swim commandos got their start

Today, the Navy SEALs are the stuff of Hollywood legend: The last two years alone have seen them featured in both Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper. But few people know the history of America’s first swim commando teams.

It all began with a kick in the ass. On the night of December 19, 1941, a 709-ton Auda-class Italian submarine surfaced in Alexandria Harbor, and six Italian frogmen mounted three miniature submersibles that contained massive warheads. Clad in wetsuits and wearing breathing devices, they each received a ceremonial kick in the backside from their commanding officer, Prince Junio Valerio Scipione Borghese, as they exited the submarine. Later called “The Black Prince,” Borghese was the leader of Decima MAS, an Italian special-operations unit that included these underwater swim commandos.

House conservatives are tired of losing fights with leadership. Now, they’re doing something about it.

About 30 House Republicans will meet Monday evening to establish the bylaws of a new caucus animated by two principles: First, rank-and-file Republicans must pressure leadership to enact a more conservative agenda. And second, this pressure should never involve frantic scurrying on the House floor.

The House Freedom Caucus, an invitation-only group, will work in concert in order to guide the House Republican Conference at key junctures, starting with the debate over a border-security bill that has conservatives alarmed.

“We’re going to focus on what we believe middle-class voters sent us here to do,” Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the de facto chairman of the organization pending leadership elections, tells National Review Online.

Every criminal printing money can now argue in court that he should be given a medal for “stimulating the economy.”

The refusal of some European countries, such as France, to tackle their high debt level and lack of competitiveness, is now also affecting the non-eurozone.

Europe now wants the rest of the world to foot the bill for its own economic mismanagement.

Suppose a family can no longer pay its debts and dad decides to solve the problem by going down to the cellar and printing extra money. Society would not approve. Printing money is a form a robbery, stealing from everyone else by diluting the value of their financial assets.

The political violence of the Koran is eternal and universal. The political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place. This is the vast difference between Islam and other ideologies.” — Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam.

The word has turned into a place where free speech is confused with hate speech, and people in positions of responsibility, who take that responsibility seriously, such as the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, are bullied, marginalized and brought to trial.

So, to a degree are we all mentally ill, but not all mental illnesses are socially acceptable and not every mentally ill person channels his mental illness through a prism of religion that glorifies homicide.

Every time Islamic terrorism is discussed, those who bring up the “Christian terrorism” of the Ku Klux Klan or anti-abortion violence simply block free speech, as if deliberately trying to scramble the main topic. They seem to be saying, “Whether the Islamic State is Islamic or not is irrelevant; there are Christian terrorists as well, so do not talk about Islamic terrorists.”

Our observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill yesterday put me in mind of Winston Churchill’s failed meeting with Adolf Hitler. It’s a story I’ve mentioned here before and ask your indulgence in mentioning again as the occasion warrants.

Among the many qualities that made Churchill a man out of joint with his times was this one: he frequently wrote and spoke favorably of the Jews and in support of the creation of a Jewish homeland. In his book Eminent Churchillians, the prominent historian Andrew Roberts pauses in his chapter on Churchill’s politically incorrect statements on race to observe:

Not all Churchill’s racial characterizations were negative…He believed the Jews to be “the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.” He felt an instinctive affinity for their genius as well as a historian’s respect for their trials, and he supported Jewish aspirations wherever they did not clash with those of the Empire. He may have inherited his philo-Semitism from his father, but he certainly gave it new lustre in his own life.

On Jan. 10, a protester holding a sign “I am Charlie” was arrested in Moscow and later sentenced to eight days in jail. A few days later, the federal media watchdog ordered the St. Petersburg edition of the Business News Agency to remove the new cover of Charlie Hebdo from its website. The same agency was warned that reprinting the cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad could be considered a criminal offense, and that it would violate the “ethical and moral norms formed in Russia through the centuries of different peoples and faiths living side by side.”

On Monday, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, whom Vladimir V. Putin appointed president of Chechnya in 2007, held a mass rally in Grozny, the regional capital, against “the enemies of Islam.” It was reportedly attended by tens of thousands of people, many of them sporting slogans that read “We love Muhammad,” in Russian, Arabic and English. The largest banner quoted Mr. Putin: “Islam is a vital part of Russia’s cultural makeup.” In his speech, Mr. Kadyrov pledged to defend Russia and denounced Western journalists and politicians.

The Iowa Freedom Summit this weekend became a major event, with 1,500 voters and 200 journalists crammed into an old theater near downtown Des Moines. It showcased more than a dozen potential Republican presidential candidates, and even though big names such as Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Senator Rand Paul, and Governor Bobby Jindal didn’t make it, voters and journalists were able to size up most of the GOP field on the same stage for the first time.

The field this cycle is the most open and competitive I’ve ever seen. Traditionally, Republicans have picked as their nominee the candidate who placed second in the most recent competitive nomination contest (the “it’s your turn” mentality). Think Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1988, Bob Dole in 1992, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012. This year is different. The number-two candidate in 2012 was former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum; even though he might run again, he isn’t accorded first-tier status for 2016.

Clear winners and losers emerged from the marathon ten-hour session of back-to-back speeches that was hosted by Citizens United (the group at the center of the famous Supreme Court case) and Iowa congressman Steve King.

Here’s the rundown.

WINNERS
Scott Walker — The Wisconsin governor proved he can be a dynamic speaker, striding the stage in shirtsleeves and demonstrating Midwest sensibilities that connected him to his Iowa audience. Who knew that he’d lived in Iowa until the third grade or that he was an expert coupon clipper at Kohl’s, a well-known regional department-store chain? Walker made a strong case for electability: “I’ve won the race for governor three times in the last four years — three times, mind you, in a state that hasn’t voted Republican for president since I was in high school 30 years ago.” Everyone knew Walker had triumphed in his hard-fought battles against the state’s public-sector unions. After his speech this weekend, Iowa audiences will clearly now get the rest of the Walker story.

The FCIC (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission), the Commission of which Representative Phil Angelides (D-CA) was chairman, reached nine main conclusions as to the cause of the near credit collapse in 2008, not one of which cited the role played by Congress, prior Administrations, or Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). The Commission was comprised of ten people, five Senators and five Representatives. Six were appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans. It was like having the fox investigate the stealing of chickens.

Certainly the causes cited by Mr. Angelides played a role. Regulatory supervision was lax, as were corporate governance and risk management assessments. Homeowners took on more debt than was prudent, and investors bought mortgage securities without paying adequate attention to the risks they entailed. There was little transparency and government was ill prepared for the crisis. There was a breakdown in business ethics (assuming they ever existed), as well as in mortgage-lending standards. Over-the-counter derivatives played a part, and credit rating agencies – with ratings paid for by the seller – were disingenuous. Buoyant markets and sunny days led to an aversion to skepticism.