In an effort to prevent President Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski from speaking at the University of Chicago, UC philosophy professor Anton Ford told a Tribune interviewer, “Sometimes there are people or views that are dangerous in and of themselves. The very ceremony of debating that is problematic. What is troubling about the general way this is talked about is that it is as if nothing is out of bounds.”

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Without surcease, the progressive law-givers scold the rest of us about the evils of bullying. Much of it, they say, is the bullying of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, questioning and gender fluid children by those ugly, ignorant little monsters who can’t stand change and who are on the wrong side of history.

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“My permanent fight to preserve the peace, prevent the war and decrease the sufferings of everyone regardless of religion were an exemplary effort deserving respect rather than persecution.” –Radovan Karadzic to Balkan Insight, ahead of his March 24, 2016 Guilty verdict

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In its war for America, the left never rests, sometimes falters but rarely allows itself to fail. It works tirelessly to “fundamentally transform the nation” and smashes anyone and anything that gets in its way.

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Well, at least this Hague-held Serb didn’t turn up dead like six or so others.

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There are certain people so deeply entrenched in the national consciousness that their immortality is sort of assumed. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was one of those figures. He was a larger-than-life man of such towering intellect and commanding influence that it never really registered that he might, someday, pass from the scene.

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PHILADELPHIA — George Washington didn’t want to attend the Constitutional Convention, never mind be its president. But duty called, and the weary general left his beloved plantation over the summer of 1787 to sit in a mahogany armchair that is still there, a gilt half sun carved into the back.

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Like hell it doesn’t.

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“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

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James Comey, former US Attorney and current head of the FBI, gave a speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington last week commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day.  He stated:  “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, Poland and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil.  They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.  That’s what people do.  And that should truly frighten us.” (NYTimes, 4/21/15)  Immediately, the Polish president took umbrage at this, reminding us that Poland was a victim, not an aggressor during the war and that Mr. Comey’s comments were the result of “ignorance, lack of historical knowledge and possibly large personal aversion” towards Poles.  Rick Lyman, the Times reporter offered the following clarification:  “And while there were certainly episodes in which Poles were responsible for the deaths of Jews, there was no widespread complicity with the Nazi policy of extermination.”  Let’s be grateful for small favors.

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All these years later, we are still fascinated and flummoxed by the Kennedy assassination. Was there are conspiracy? Was it the act of a lone gunman? Were Lee Harvey Oswald and his killer, Jack Ruby, connected beforehand in some way? Was it the Mob? Castro? Rogue elements of the CIA?

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Americans are a punitive bunch. We love to punish people. Nearly 3 percent of American adults are in prison, jail, probation or parole, a figure far beyond any other industrialized nation.
     But that’s only the beginning. We entertain ourselves with elaborate revenge fantasies on TV and in the movies, and of course arm ourselves in order to deliver swift justice to anybody who might cross us, changing the laws to better encourage each other to stand our ground.
     While vengeance feasts, forgiveness starves, which is part of what drew my interest to a thin new book—155 pages—by Jeanne Bishop titled Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy, and

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The outflowing of outrage over the grand jury decisions not to indict the police officers in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases has reached dangerous proportions.

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History will sort out whether the bitter, right-wing hatred of Barack Obama was significantly greater than the bitter, right-wing hatred of John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt or any previous president.

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An important libel lawsuit in Washington D.C Superior Court, which has received little public attention, is sure to heat up soon. At issue is a contentious clash involving global warming, scientific research, and freedom of speech.

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Remember Tonya Reaves, the woman who died in 2012 from a botched abortion in a downtown Chicago Planned Parenthood Clinic?

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Though chutzpah has successfully migrated into the English language intact, saichel, the Yiddish word for innate common sense has not fared as well. 

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A judge has ordered a Colorado baker to make wedding cakes for gay couples, despite the baker’s religious objection.

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It used to be that wild drivers were pursued by the police, caught up with, pulled over to the curb, and given a breathalyzer and a stiff fine.

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There’s terrorism and there’s state terrorism. We must finally admit that the real threat to our freedom and civil rights is not from Muslim extremists or Communist fanatics but from our democratically-elected government operating under a shroud of secrecy, and in conspiracy with private industry.

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Fame is not fair. The names of bank robbers of the 1930s, for instance, still roll off our tongues: John Dillinger; Bonnie & Clyde; Pretty Boy Floyd. Crude thugs in souped-up Packards bursting into small town banks, waving guns and fleeing with a couple hundred dollars. Still they are immortal.

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Turn your calendars back — 1984 has arrived in America.

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V anitas vanitatum, Ecclesiastes reminds us, omnis vanitas.

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Forty-two-year-old Alexander Cvetkovic, accused of Srebrenica-related war crimes, is an Israeli citizen who is ethnically Serb. The latter usually means his chances of avoiding extradition to a Bosnian show trial aren’t good. Political expediency has been the rule governing all world governments facing Bosnian-Muslim demands for war crimes extraditions, based on dubious howls of “genocide.” So dubious that laws have been enacted in Europe to enforce the belief that extrajudicial executions of Muslim soldiers are on par with the Holocaust.

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Being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth can give a young man a sense of entitlement or a sense of noblesse oblige. Michael Kranish and Scott Helman’s biography of The Real Romney unintentionally reveals that in Mitt’s case it has done the latter and, moreover, that his serious Mormonism played a central role in insuring that his horizons would not encompass merely his modern day “nobles.” This has been particularly important given his extraordinary talents strong will. Reading the book, I, a 2008 McCain voter, found myself in a position similar to that of Elizabeth Bennett as she was contemplating Fitzwilliam Darcy’s portrait, as a son, husband, father, friend, businessman, governor, “how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship! - How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! - How much of good or evil must be done by him!” Increasingly, I came to realize that the man not only can be trusted but that he did not have “any inappropriate pride” but just enough to make sure he achieves his goals without sacrificing his honor. As in Darcy’s case, by his deeds you shall know him.

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Serbia: Italian group probes depleted uranium use in NATO bombings

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Yet another case of an Albanian who should be allowed in the U.S. but is getting the shaft. If you read this Motion to Deny by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals supporting the decisions of the original immigration judge and then the Board of Immigration Appeals, you will see why. As Liz, who circulated the item, put it: “No asylum in the U.S.A. for an Albanian who didn’t play by the rules of USA’s [terrorist] allies.”

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Trayvon’s death is very sad. A handsome seventeen year old walking home is now dead. I have a teenage son who can mouth off and act impulsively. He could get himself in trouble one day. Or not.  On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest Zimmerman acted in self-defense: a broken nose, cries for help and alleged statement that Martin was sitting on top of Zimmerman.

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Many folks are prematurely celebrating the death of ObamaCare after the pummeling of the administration’s lawyer—the Solicitor General—and others arguing on the law’s behalf. The questioning was aggressive, the Constitutional questions pointed, and the SG a nervous wreck.

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Criminals are stupid. Not all of them, of course. I suppose there must a few Prof. Moriarty masterminds out there, living quietly in splendor in Monaco, having pulled off whatever heists they managed to get away with, unapprehended.

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The United States has been the greatest country in the world for so long, many of its residents seem to think it’s the only country in the world.

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Today is Simchat Torah.  This year  Gilad Shalit Comes Home with Tears of Joy Mixed With Bitter Tears of Sorrow. What else is new? you’d rightly ask.  The Jewish state has paid an exorbitant price to reaffirm the Jewish maxim that all of Israel are responsible for each other and Jews world over are going to dance with the Torah with more joyfully and committedly than usual.  They understand instinctively that this sense of mutual responsibility carries the key to Jewish survival.  When one part of the Jewish world falters, the other is there to pick up the slack.   This aspect of Jewish history has long been celebrated.  Less celebrated is the role the rejuvenated slacker plays in strengthening the tiring hands of those who helped them.   Time and again the enthusiasm of the Jews rediscovering their religion serves as an adrenaline shot to the jaded comfortable communities.  This has been the case of the Spanish/Portuguese survivors in the Netherlands.  This had been the case of the Holocaust survivors in Israel and America and this is the case with the post Soviet Jewry today.  Let us not forget, Simchat Torah the holiday used by Soviet Jews to demonstrate their willingness to pay any price for the privilege of remaining a Jew. 

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