"I Believe Karl Marx Could Have Subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount"

Cuba's eminence grise, Fidel Castro, presents the Pope with the book chock-full of Castro's zany views on Christ, Marx and the Cuban revolution (which, go figure, banned Catholicism and declared atheism--and, of course, Marxism--to be the new state religion).

Now, that's what even those ensconced in the Vatican might call "chutzpah"!

Another Bone-Headed Obama Scheme

He's asking the Pope--yes, the Pope!--to help get American hostages sprung from Iran.

Because, as everyone knows, the head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church has mucho influence with fanatical Shia theocrats who are awaiting the return of their messiah, the long-missing 12th imam, so he can kick-start the end times.

"Let's All 'Invent' a F-king Clock and Send It To Obama"

Works for me, but since we're not a resourceful 14-year Muslim (whose dad is a perennial presidential candidate in Somalia), we'd likely get arrested.

Facebook Is Creating an Empathy Button

Surely a "this is total bullsh*t" button would be more helpful, no?

Karl Marx's Revenge: The Frankfurt School Won Even Though Communism Lost

Here's my latest for The Megaphone:

Want to know why conservatives face more than an uphill struggle these days?

A lot of it has to do with the insidious and pervasive influence of the Frankfurt School, a group of German thinkers whose nutty Marxist ideas have thoroughly infested academia, politics and popular culture.

Victor Davis Hanson reviews a new book on the subject -- The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Thinking and the Subversion of the West, by Michael Walsh.

Here's VDH, who calls the Frankfurt intellectuals “charlatans,” laying it all out for us:

Note that Republicans have taken back both houses of Congress, often win in the Supreme Court, have majorities in the state legislatures and governorships, and may win the presidency in 2016. And yet if one examines the schools and universities, Hollywood, the art world, what shows up on televisions and the news, whom the foundations are funding, what the clerks in government do — everything really from our monuments to poetry — it is hard not to confess that “we lost.” 

In a word, relativism seems to have won. There are few standards left. Everything is negotiable, from the now fossilized idea of a traitor like Bergdahl to a neo-Confederate sanctuary city. A play, a movie, a building, a novel — anything really — cannot be assessed by absolute criteria, given that such “standards” are always set by oppressors of some sort, usually the children of capitalism and bourgeoisie consumerism who wish to enshrine their “privilege.” Take a sentence, chop it up into lines, and presto — a poem. By what standards is Chopin any more a genius than a Snoop Dogg? I thought of Walsh’s book yesterday when watching the various newscast reactions to the migration crisis in Europe and the deer-in-the-headlines faces of the European Eloi: Who are we to say that our culture is better than theirs? What is a border anyway? What even is a migrant? Whose values construct someone into the “Other”? Why do hosts enjoy privilege and guests do not?

Frankfurt intellectuals have done a lot of damage: from multiculturalism to postmodern art, they have destroyed the individual experience and made us cardboard cut-outs by their constant Marxist-inspired dumbing down, ending in a dreary predictable sameness. The past has become melodrama adjudicated by 30-year-old PhDs rather than muscular tragedy. When Obama decides to rename a mountain or brags that Trayvon looks like the son he never had or urges Latinos to “punish our enemies” and quips “typical white person,” he is more or less offering a paint-by-numbers version of the postmodernists who despise both the rich capitalist West whose bounty created their own leisure and subsidizes their nihilism, and the rest of us who lack their awareness and thus are unthinking cogs in a huge monotonous wheel. For the postmodernist, Middle America lacks the romance of the poor of the inner city that is never visited and the high culture of the Upper West Side or Georgetown that is prized...

You know how Karl Marx claimed that history occurs twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as comedy? I have to say that when you consider the tragic loss of life spawned by the Communist vision around the globe and, in our time, the unintentionally hilarious nonsense engendered by the Frankfurt School ("triggers," "microaggressions," "white privilege," the cult of victimhood and the rest of that crapola), you have to admit that old Karl kind of, sort of, got it right.

Ironically, though, it is these later lunacies, silly as they are, and not old school Communism (which went down to defeat decades ago, not long after a Republican implored a Communist to "tear down that wall!"), that are helping pave the decline and fall of the West.

In so doing, they are handing Karl Marx the posthumous victory that was snatched from his hands (symbolically, at least) when the Soviet Union fell.

Quelle Surprise (Not): UN Taps Saudi Ambassador for "Human Rights" Gig

In Saudi Arabia, wacky Wahhabism is the order of the day, and chicks are victims of a strictly-enforced gender apartheid (they can't, for example, drive a car; nor can they perambulate in public sans a heavy, black, head-to-toe body shroud or a close male relative to act as chaperone). But why should that be an impediment to the Saudi UN ambassador being appointed to a UN "human rights" position? After all, when it comes to the Middle East's sole democracy, the UN's "human rights" ethos is fully in line with the Wahhabis' (the reason you would never see an Israeli getting one of these cushy "human rights" gigs). So why should this appointment come as any surprise?

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, for one, isn't the least bit surprised. Outraged: yes. Surprised: not really: 

The election of Faisal bin Hassan Trad to chair a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) follows a barrage of criticism aimed at the Saudi regime over its treatment of minorities and its apparent fondness for capital punishment. 

Mr Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was appointed to the role in June - shortly after the kingdom posted an advert for eight new executioners. 

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer described the move as a victory for cheap oil over human rights.  

Mr Neuer said: “Saudi Arabia has arguably the worst record in the world when it comes to religious freedom and women’s rights, and continues to imprison the innocent blogger Raif Badawi.” 

Mr Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, who has been leading a campaign to free her husband, said the move gave Saudi Arabia “a green light to start flogging [him] again”.

Apparently the UN's HRC is copacetic with Wahhabi flogging (and its other draconian punishments, including amputations, beheadings and stoning). But don't get 'em started on the wickedness of the Jewish State because they could (and often do) go on for days and days about that.

"It Is Understood the Men Fled the Scene, Probably By Parachute"

Had I been writing the news report about the Eifel Tower being shut down due to three men who were seen to be carrying large backpacks, the way they fled--"by jumping off with parachutes or hand gliding before the guards arrived," a brazen new way for terrorists to escape such a scene--would have figured prominently in my lede.

This Is What Happens When You Set the Bar Really Low

UN Nuke Agency: Iran's Role in Nuclear Probe Meets Standards

Palestinians Seek to Expel Israel's Magen David Adom From The Red Cross For Using a Red Magen David

How dare those Jews use the Star of David instead of the non-specific symbol (a red diamond) that was foisted upon them as a condition of Red Cross membership?

Personally, I have always thought it disgusting and more than a little anti-Semitic that the International Red Cross has no problem with Muslims using a red crescent but does not permit Israel to use a red Magen David.

Never Trust an Administration That Can't Get Its Pirate Lingo Right

In honour of this year's Talk Like a Pirate Day (which was yesterday), the White House tweeted this:

Arrgh businesses have added 13.1 million jobs over the past five and a half years. #TalkLikeAPirateDay pic.twitter.com/V6GwVWjilN

According to the International Talk Like a Pirate Day website, the correct word isn't "Arrgh" (which, as Twitchy notes, is more Peanuts than pirate), it's "Arrr!"

"Zumera Ishaq Sounds Like the Kind of Immigrant This Country Desperately Needs. She Should Be Allowed to Wear Whatever She Wants"

Typical--and terminal--Ceeb cluelessness from one of the Mothercorp's lamest lefties.