ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

‘Inconvenient Anti-Semites’ in New York’s War on Hate Three blind spots render incoherent the promises of liberal politicians to protect Jews from attack. By Elliot Kaufman

Posted By on December 17th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inconvenient-anti-semites-new-york-hate-crime-kanye-jewish-black-hasidic-brooklyn-11671200214?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

After a long month of attacks on Jews in New York City, the big guns held a symposium at a Manhattan synagogue Monday. One by one, Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pledged to fight anti-Semitism. After blaming Donald Trump, Ms. Hochul announced a new hate-prevention initiative and vowed, “When you attack one of us, anyone, that is picking a fight with 20 million other New Yorkers, starting with your governor.”

Liberals love to fight hate, but I’d rather they punish crime. Americans Against Antisemitism has studied 194 anti-Jewish assaults and 135 property incidents in New York City since 2018 but can identify only two offenders who have been sentenced to prison. Others receive probation or counseling or their charges aren’t followed up. “There are practically no serious consequences to be had,” the group concludes in a July report.

Examples abound: In May 2021, a Brooklyn man with an attempted-murder charge pending yelled “F—ing Jews! I’m going to f— you up” and punched a 67-year-old man in the head. He was arrested but hate-crime charges were dropped and he pleaded down to a misdemeanor.

The New York Police Department reported 45 hate crimes against Jews in November, more than double the monthly figure from a year ago. It records 278 such crimes this year, up 53%, and 100 arrests, up 61%. Why don’t prosecutions and prison sentences follow? “I’ve asked the question for years with the DAs of the world, with legislators,” Rabbi David Niederman, a top Satmar Hasidic leader in Brooklyn, says in an interview. He gets no answer.

MEDIA Comments turned off

What the ‘Twitter Files’ say about the future of journalism By Sarah Westwood

Posted By on December 17th, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/what-twitter-files-say-future-journalism

Twitter owner Elon Musk’s decision to share internal records with a trio of independent journalists spawned stories about how Twitter executives worked to invent justifications for content decisions they’d already made on ideological grounds.

But it also feeds into a story about how Twitter itself, and other platforms, like the subscription service Substack, have decentralized the media so effectively that individual voices can drive the news in ways once reserved for legacy outlets .

Journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger each combed through reams of Twitter emails, message chains from the workplace communication tool Slack, and screenshots to publish five sets of analyses on Twitter. Their final products took the form of lengthy Twitter threads about how Twitter suppressed stories on Hunter Biden’s business dealings during the 2020 election and how the company ultimately decided to ban former President Donald Trump permanently.

The journalists all had several things in common: They all run popular Substack pages, they have all written pieces in the past for legacy media outlets like the New York Times, and they all have large Twitter followings.

The least-followed of the three, Shellenberger, still had more than 357,000 Twitter followers before he posted his batch of the so-called Twitter Files. He now has more than 480,000. Taibbi started December with less than 750,000 Twitter followers and now boasts more than 1.5 million.

And perhaps most importantly, all three have been outspoken about what they see as the excesses of the Left on cultural issues such as speech and corporate influence.

“To me, the media’s response to the Twitter Files is itself a scandal,” Charles Lipson, political science professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, told the Washington Examiner.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

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

Posted 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.

HISTORY Comments turned off

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

Posted 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.  

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Waste and Abuse in the Paycheck Protection Program

Posted 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.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Is the FBI Investigating Israel? Matthew Continetti 

Posted 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.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The War for Eight Billion Minds by J.B. Shurk

Posted By on December 16th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19237/eight-billion-minds

This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.

Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.

[F]or all the harms their actions have caused, governments have issued no apologies for enforcing such life-altering policies while silencing critics. It is as if “narrative engineers” have adopted an official position that they are incapable of being wrong.

The more nervous about the future policymakers are, the more committed they seem to enforcing a standard “narrative” they can control.

In an age when information has never been more easily accessible, the world is awash in lies.

A citizen either accepts Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” as “Russian disinformation,” or that person is labeled a “Russian sympathizer.” Daring to say otherwise could get one banned from social media, professionally sanctioned, or even fired from a job. Except none of these established “narratives” has proved true.

In each case, the “narrative” proved to be either misleading propaganda or an outright lie. Yet they were created and sustained by online communication platforms that pushed the lies and excluded the truths.

As global events increasingly threaten Western stability, governments have demonstrated no inclination to entertain a diversity of viewpoints or discussions along the way. Instead, the more serious the issue, the more committed to a single, overarching “narrative” they seem to become.

This war for eight billion minds means that citizens must be more vigilant than ever in processing and evaluating what they see and read. Whether they like it or not, they are under attack at all times from those who seek to manipulate and control them. As in the last century, we are surrounded by totalitarian propaganda routinely disguised as “the truth.”

The heavy perils we face today include centralized governments micromanaging society, the growing prospect of global war, the growing prospect of forced surrender, and the replacement of reasoned debate and free speech with state-sanctioned “narratives” and censorship: totalitarian governance seems not far behind. This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Whistleblower Warning Elon Musk should expect a multi-front assault from the Biden Junta. By Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on December 16th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/15/whistleblower-warning/

“You may have money, but you have no class.”

As Sir Bedivere (Terry Jones) put it in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” who is this who is so wise in the ways of finance and etiquette? Perhaps Thornton Mellon (Rodney Dangerfield) to Dr. Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman) in “Back to School”? 

Not even close. 

The tweeter was former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, responding to Elon Musk’s tweet of “my pronouns are/Prosecute Fauci.” The Tesla-Twitter boss also got a rise out of Alexander Vindman, star witness of the “bombshell” 2019 impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. Vindman compared Musk to the famed Nazi propagandist he misspelled as “Geobbles,” like some compact car or Star Wars character. 

Musk also caught a blast from Baylor virology professor Dr. Peter Hotez. Like Sollozo with mobster Bruno Tattaglia in “The Godfather,” Hotez is on Anthony Fauci’s payroll for big money. Hotez wants those who criticize Fauci to be prosecuted under hate crimes laws, so it’s no surprise he wanted Musk to take down his tweet. He didn’t, and Musk also got a rise out of Keith Olbermann. 

Back in his sportscaster days, Olbermann fancied himself a wit by describing NBA star Arvydas Sabonis as “Our Vidas.” Rebranded as a media sage, Olberman suggested that Fauci sue Musk. The former MSNBC star also wondered “what terrorist or foreign influence is involved” and what can be done to stop Musk. Fauci’s tweet chorus thus proves instructive about Musk and Trump alike.  

President Trump achieved energy independence and put Americans back to work at record levels. Trump started no new wars and got allies to pay more for their own defense. Trump’s Abraham Accords expanded the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Trump also took out master terrorists Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Celebrate Elon Musk, but Don’t Lose Sight of Big Tech’s Structural Problem Truth is, as great as Musk has been not merely for Twitter but for the health of America’s digital town square in general, concerted public policy and legal changes are still needed. By Josh Hammer

Posted By on December 16th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/15/celebrate-elon-musk-but-dont-lose-sight-of-big-techs-structural-problem/

The story of Elon Musk’s acquisition, transformation and public rehabilitation of Twitter is nothing short of remarkable. Here is that rarest of confluences: A right-leaning (or at least right-sympathetic) mega-billionaire privately acquires a disproportionately influential public company out of genuine public-spiritedness, perhaps even a hint of noblesse oblige, and an earnest commitment to preserving open discourse in our modern digital public square; exposes grievous previous company wrongs for the whole world to see in a dramatic unveiling of the eponymous “Twitter Files”; and makes decisive personnel decisions to toss out core leaders of the wretched and corrupt old regime, and begins to chart a promising new path forward.

There has been no equivalent story in my adult lifetime, and there is unlikely to be a similar story again any time soon. This is not the type of corporate development one typically reads about in The Wall Street Journal or sees discussed on CNBC. The story is a unicorn.

The remarkable nature of the Elon Musk/Twitter saga, and the specific revelations about Twitter’s blacklisting of the infamous 2020 campaign-era Hunter Biden laptop story and its censorship/shadow-banning of myriad other right-leaning content creators, has led many on the Right to fete Musk with praise — at times, even fawning adoration. To be sure, that praise is wholly warranted: Musk has thus far proven wrong the skeptics who were unsure just how big an impact he might be able to make at Twitter, answering the call of his civic duty as the world’s wealthiest man. Indeed, he has gone above and beyond his civic duty.

But as transformative as Musk has been in the nascent stages of his Twitter ownership, it is crucial to not forget the bigger picture.

Twitter, though the preferred communicative organ of the American political class and the broader commentariat, pales in comparison to most other Big Tech platforms in terms of its reach. In terms of pure social media platforms alone, Facebook is orders of magnitude more popular than Twitter globally, and is over four times as popular just in the U.S. based on number of users. Facebook’s fellow Meta subsidiary, Instagram, is also roughly three times as popular as Twitter based on volume of American users.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How Did Biden’s Gender-Fluid Nuclear Luggage Thief Get a High Security Clearance? By Robert Spencer

Posted By on December 16th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/12/15/how-did-bidens-gender-fluid-nuclear-luggage-thief-get-a-high-security-clearance-n1653972

In the end, he just had too much baggage. Sam Brinton, the Biden administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy, is now out of a job after being charged with felony theft and grand larceny for taking bags that didn’t belong to him at the Minneapolis and Las Vegas airports. But Old Joe Biden’s handlers still have a great deal to answer for regarding Brinton. Most notably, there’s this: how did this clown who appeared far more interested in showing himself off wearing women’s clothes than in actually dealing with nuclear waste get a high-level security clearance?

There will probably never be any answer to that question, given the sycophantic Leftist establishment media, but it remains an urgent question given the likelihood — actually, the outright certainty — that this administration will continue to appoint people more for their symbolic value than for their abilities.