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December 2022

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Don should make way for Ron The GOP can still make 2024 their year Ayaan Hirsi Ali

By on December 17th, 2022

https://thespectator.com/topic/why-don-should-make-way-for-ron-desantis/?utm_source=Morning+Shot&utm_campaign=

When I arrived in Washington, DC in 2006 to learn about US politics, someone told me that in America, there are two main parties: the party of power and the party of stupid. The latter denoted, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Republican Party. And so it continues to prove. The failure of the much-hyped red wave to materialize in the 2022 midterms shows that the GOP has not lost its knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Consider: a day before the election, Biden’s approval rating was 39 percent. This was a reflection of his poor performance (inflation, gas prices and immigration are just a few of the issues on which his administration has shown stunning incompetence). Concerned that the electorate was comparing the moment to the period of prosperity under Donald Trump, Democrats were fearful of what Election Day would bring, while Republicans must have felt giddy in anticipation, like children on Christmas Eve.

Now, the roles are reversed. The Democrats have held the Senate and, while they’ve lost the House, Republican control is by a far narrower margin than they had anticipated. Biden is gloating, and Republicans are in shock.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

Chanukah Guide for the Perplexed 2022 Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

By on December 17th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3huvOyQ 

1. NBC news, December 13, 2022: “An ancient treasure trove of silver coins dating back 2,200 years, found in a desert cave in Israel, could add crucial new evidence to support a story of Jewish rebellion…. The 15 silver coins were hidden [during] the Maccabean revolt from 167-160 B.C., when Jewish warriors rebelled against the Seleucid [Syrian] Empire….” 

2. The US relevance. In 1777, Chanukah was celebrated during the most critical battle at Valley Forge, which solidified the victory of George Washington’s Continental Army over the British monarchy.

Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a player in the ratification of the US Constitution, paved the road to the Boston Tea Party, 1773: “What shining examples of patriotism do we behold in Joshua, Samuel, the Maccabees and the illustrious princes and prophets among the Jews…” 

Chanukah according to US Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, December 1915: “Chanukah, the Feast of the Maccabees…celebrates a victory of the spirit over things material… a victory also over [external, but also] more dangerous internal enemies, the Sadducees [the upper social and economic echelon]; a victory over the ease-loving, safety-playing, privileged, powerful few, who in their pliancy would have betrayed the best interests of the people; a victory of democracy over aristocracy…. The struggle of the Maccabees is of eternal worldwide interest…. It is a struggle in which all Americans, non-Jews as well as Jews… are vitally affected…”

3. Jewish national liberation holiday.  Chanukah (evening of December 18 – December 26, 2022) is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike the national liberation holidays – Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles, and Shavou’ot/Pentecost – which commemorate the Exodus from slavery in Egypt to liberation in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.  

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Waste and Abuse in the Paycheck Protection Program

By on December 17th, 2022

https://www.newsweek.com/waste-abuse-paycheck-protection-program-opinion-1766582

JAMES PIERESON AND ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

When COVID-19 began to infect Americans in early 2020, Congress appropriated $787 billion under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to allow businesses and nonprofits to pay employees when they were forced to close. These payments were made in the form of low-interest loans that would be forgiven if the funds were spent on salaries, wages, and related expenses. PPP’s purpose was to maintain payrolls and incomes while the country fought through the early months of the virus.

A recent study from OpenTheBooks, an organization devoted to transparency in government spending, reports that more than 95% of these loans were forgiven, and many were sent out to wealthy organizations, including top law and accounting firms, country clubs, and even family offices that were facing little financial concern.

OpenTheBooks reports that $1.4 billion in forgiven PPP loans went to some of the largest law and accounting firms in the country. Nearly half of the largest 300 law firms in the United States took payments from the program, as did three-quarters of the largest accounting firms. Overall, some 25,000 law and accounting firms received $13 billion in PPP loans. While those firms may have qualified for the payments, it is questionable whether they really needed them.

Among law firms, Boies Schiller Flexner, led by long-time Democratic Party counselor David Boies, received the maximum of $10 million in forgiven PPP loans, even as the firm billed clients for $480 million during 2020 and 2021 and equity partners in the firm received $4.5 million each in average profits. Meanwhile, partners and employees in the firm donated $1 million to candidates during the 2020 and 2022 campaign cycles, almost all of it to Democrats.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Is the FBI Investigating Israel? Matthew Continetti 

By on December 17th, 2022

https://www.commentary.org/articles/matthew-continetti/fbi-israel-shireen-abu-akleh/\

Last spring, after terrorist attacks killed more than a dozen Israelis, the Israel Defense Forces conducted counterterrorism operations throughout the West Bank. On May 11, during a raid in the city of Jenin, a bullet struck and killed Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh. What happened next is a case study in selective indignation that continues to damage the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Suddenly—and all too predictably—the 51-year-old Akleh, who held U.S. and Palestinian Authority passports and covered the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from her base in Jerusalem, became a martyr for the Palestinian cause and a rallying cry for critics and enemies of Israel. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, 18 years into his four-year term, described Akleh’s death as an “execution” at the hands of the Israeli army. A Hamas spokesman said that Israel had “deliberately assassinated” her. Such language reverberated in the United States, where Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) said that Israel “murdered” Akleh.

The rush to judgment was as dizzying as it was grotesque. The usual suspects charged Israel with murder before either an autopsy or an official inquiry had been performed. And the imputation that the Israeli military had killed Akleh on purpose was simply slanderous. Israel has the freest press in the Middle East, and the Israel Defense Forces operates under strict rules of engagement that are meant to limit civilian casualties. To argue that what happened in Jenin could have been anything more than a terrible accident is to argue in bad faith.

Yet there is plenty of bad faith to go around, so far as Israel is concerned. Not only did the Palestinian Authority refuse to conduct a joint inquiry with Israel into Akleh’s death, it also would not allow the Israelis to examine the bullet that had killed her. Akleh’s funeral erupted in violence when Israeli riot police clashed with a mob that attempted to turn the sacred rite into a nationalist rally by carrying her casket through the streets of Jerusalem. Global media and nongovernmental organizations issued reports feeding the conspiracy theories surrounding Akleh’s death. And U.S. Democrats looking to court pro-Palestinian constituencies insisted that the Biden administration take a hard line against the armed forces of an American ally.

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