AND TO THOSE OF OUR FRIENDS WHO ARE UNWELL, A SPEEDY AND COMPLETE RECOVERY. YOU ARE IN OUR PRAYERS.
IT WILL BE A GOODYEAR FOR ALL, 'CAUSE ALABAMA HANDILY BEAT THEIR OPPOSITION TODAY IN THE "SHUGAH BOWL." ME
Saturday, December 31, 2022
Friday, December 30, 2022
I AM UPBEAT BUT THEN, WHAT DO I KNOW? KIM. ISRAEL'S HISTORIC GOVERNMENT. RADICALS GO TO EXTREME
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
+++++++++++++++++
THE NEW YEAR BEGINS JUST AS IT FINISHED.OUR BORDERS ARE A SIEVE, OUR STREETS ARE FLOODED WITH DRUGS AND THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE BRAVE IS A THING OF THE PAST.
FINALLY, NO ONE IN AMERICA WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE. IT IS FAR MORE PROFITABLE TO ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO SUBSIDIZE OUR EVERY 'DESIRE' WHICH HAS NOW BECOME AN ENTITLEMENT. JOBS ARE PLENTIFUL BUT NOT WORKERS.
Where the Netanyahu government differs from its predecessor - INN
MEANWHILE, THE OPPOSITION PARTY IS IN DISSARAY AND IS PREPARED TO INVESTIGATE THE GENESIS OF ALL OF THE ABOVE AND THE PROSPECT THAT ANYONE CARES IS QUESTIONABLE BECAUSE THE IMPACT OF A SOUR ECONOMY UNDERCUTS THE FOCUSED ATTTENTION OF MOST CITIZENS WHO ARE BEING HURT BY INFLATION.
EVEN MY GENERALLY UPBEAT WIFE BELIEVES NO ONE CARES ANY LONGER AND THEIR ATTITUDE IS ONE OF "SO WHAT, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE."
THE STOCK MARKET IS CONFUSED AND HELD HOSTAGE BY A POTENTIAL RECESSION BECAUSE THE FED COULD OVERSTAY RAISING INTEREST RATES AND UNDERCUT THE ECONOMY WHICH HAS BEEN DISRUPTED BY POOR GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND AN OVER REACTION TO COVID.
IF THE ABOVE IS NOT ENOUGH, I CAN THROW IN THE FACT THAT RUSSIA IS AT WAR WITH IT'S NEIGHBOR, N KOREA CONTINUES AS AN IRRITANT, CHINA IS PREPARING TO DOMINATE THE WORLD COMMERCIALLYAND MILTARILY AND IRAN IS AN INFERNO OF CITIZEN REBELLIOUSNESS.
ANOTHER "DOWNER" BONUS IS A PIPSQUEAK NAMED SAM BANKMAN-FRIED WHO JUST BLEW BILLIONS OF INVESTOR MONEY ON QUESTIONABLE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND HIGH LIVING FRAUDULENT ACTIVITIES.
AS FOR YOURS TRULY, THE PERENIAL PESSIMIST, I AM ACTUALLY UPBEAT BECAUSE IT PROBABLY CANNOT GET MUCH WORSE, THE MARKET IS BEARISH AND SMART INVESTORS GENERALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OPPORTUNITIES WHEN THE ATMOSPHERE IS MOST GLUM AND UNCERTAIN.
EVEN IN THE WORST OF MARKETS, CERTAIN SEGMENTS OFFER OPPORTUNITIES. MY CURRENT PREFERENCES ARE SMALL CAP STOCKS WITH SOLID EARNINGS AND FREE CASH FLOWSAND STOCKS THAT ARE ENERGY AND HEALTHCARE RELATED. I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED IF WE ENDURE A MILD RECESSION, PERHAPS ANOTHER LEG DOWN YET, A SOLID RALLY BEFORE JANUARY IS BEHIND US.
BUT THEN WHAT DO I KNOW AND TIME ALWAYS TELLS.
+++
House Republicans Plan a Committee on Censors and Snoops
Tentatively called the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, it would look into abuses by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies.
BY Kimberley A. Strassel
It takes a fair amount of malfeasance to land a new congressional committee. Congratulations to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice Department and other government censors and snoops.
Sources tell me that House Republicans plan to set up a panel under the House Judiciary Committee, tentatively called the “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.” Such a panel was among the demands of some GOP holdouts to Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker. The Republican leader has publicly expressed his support for the subcommittee’s creation, which hinges on the rebels’ willingness to join the rest of their conference and back him in next Tuesday’s vote.
The committee’s title is a recognition that the recent revelations about government meddling in speech and politics go beyond the FBI. There’s plenty yet to discover about the bureau’s sordid Russia-collusion hoax, its duping of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and its efforts to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. And a recent batch of Twitter files from journalist Matt Taibbi includes documents showing a shocking intimacy between the FBI and Twitter as they policed online speech.
But files have also shown the FBI was facilitating censorship requests from other parts of government. Add to this other disturbing government moves to use its power to silence or track citizens, whether it be Attorney General Merrick Garland’s directive to the FBI and U.S. attorneys to probe parents (after the National School Board Association suggested they might be domestic terrorists) or the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to create a Disinformation Governance Board.
The subcommittee’s proposed charter is a recognition that Congress hasn’t kept pace with government’s potential to abuse new technology or to get creative with existing laws. I’m told the panel—in addition to shining a light on past and continuing misbehavior—will take a look at how agencies work with each other and with the private sector to collect information on Americans. It’ll evaluate what powers Congress has given the executive branch; whether that was a good idea; and whether agency actions conform with the Constitution, laws enacted by Congress, and ethical standards.
The panel’s designation as a subcommittee is designed to allow Republicans to make changes if necessary. Stand-alone select committees lack the power to legislate. A new subcommittee would begin with both the resources of the Judiciary Committee and the ability to work with other committees of jurisdiction on any reforms.
The biggest merit of a committee remains transparency—and accountability—and good for Republicans for seeking to provide it. The Twitter files are an immense public service, cracking open entire categories of bad behavior. Yet the individual threads have a piecemeal feel and require the public to trust claims based on unnamed employees or unpublished documents. A new committee can use subpoenas and testimony to flesh out these story lines.
Likewise it can illuminate the FBI misdeeds exposed by special counsel John Durham and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Both have done stellar work but faced limitations. Mr. Horowitz was constrained by the discrete topic of his probe—FBI abuse of the FISA court. Mr. Durham was hemmed in by his decision to indict targets for lying to the feds—which required him too often to paint the FBI as dupes. Congress now has dozens of lines for fuller inquiry.
The risk of the committee is that—like the 1975 Church Committee, which some in the GOP are unwisely citing as a model—it results in overreach. Republicans are increasingly debating “structural” FBI change—and that deserves a look. But the FBI mess is fundamentally a political failure. Don’t tell James Comey, but the bureau reports to the Justice Department, which in the Obama years did nothing to rein Mr. Comey in. Rod Rosenstein, Donald Trump’s deputy attorney general, dodged clean-up by farming out the collusion hoax to special counsel Robert Mueller, who avoided addressing the FBI’s culpability. Clearly spelling out these abdications of duty could go a long way to avoiding a repeat.
Memories are short, but Republicans might recall that the Church Committee did far more harm than good. It exposed a few dumb Central Intelligence Agency plots, but at the cost of allowing the left to attack and undermine the U.S. intelligence mission in ways that weakened our capabilities. The committee’s ill-considered recommendations also landed us with the FISA court, which dilutes accountability by serving as an FBI rubber stamp. Today’s risk is that a right-left coalition teams up to gut necessary counterintelligence tools, to reorient agency missions willy-nilly, or to layer poorly conceived “checks” on the FISA court or FBI that don’t stop abuses but dilute accountability further.
The nation needs a GOP Congress to get to the bottom of government abuse, but it also needs lawmakers who take that duty on soberly, with an eye to more than headlines. Here’s hoping.
++++++++++++++++++++
The democratic will of the voters produced a historic government
Not only does Netanyahu’s government aspire to bring Israel four years of much-needed electoral stability, it will also focus on fixing critical components of Israel’s political system and careful liberal-traditional balance, to ensure the Jewish state is not once again thrown into chaos by destabilizing progressive forces
By Alex Traiman, ISRAEL HAYOM
Israel inducted a historic right-wing government Thursday, led by three-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s return to power and the formation of a strong right-wing government is a tremendous achievement for a nation that has increasingly turned towards the right-wing values of strong security and protecting the Jewish character of the state.
The 64-member Likud-led coalition, joined by Netanyahu’s loyal right-wing and religious allies, puts to bed years of electoral instability wrought by politicians who attempted to will Israel’s longest-serving prime minister out of power. Ultimately it was the voters themselves who tired of prosecutorial and political tricks aimed at removing Netanyahu from office.
In November, the Israeli voters spoke out in resounding fashion, with over 70% voter participation during a fifth consecutive election, to send the destabilizing forces a powerful message: that Israel is overwhelmingly a proud, right-wing, nationalist country.
The series of five elections had brought the Israeli electoral system to a breaking point. Ending the political standoff proved to be a battle of wills.
The will of a desperate opposition about to be relegated to the backbenches of political irrelevance: definitely not. The will of Israeli media who have colluded for the last several years with Israel’s political left: not a chance. The will of a heavily politicized prosecution and judiciary, hell-bent on removing Netanyahu if the voters wouldn’t: not even close.
The installation of Israel’s right-wing government is not the will of Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir or any other member of Israel’s expanded political realms. Rather, it is the will of the voters and democracy at its best. It is the will of a voting public that has had its right-wing leadership pulled out from under it for nearly four years, by selfish and misguided politicians who have used every available parliamentary maneuver, prosecutorial misconduct and media spin to produce electoral instability.
The right-wing won in overwhelming fashion, with 64 Knesset seats, compared to just 46 for left-wing parties–practically an electoral landslide.
And while the left-wing opposition is lamenting what it falsely calls “the end of democracy,” the overwhelming majority of Israelis disagree with the left’s assertion.
Rather, it was the left, led by now-opposition leader Yair Lapid, that threw Israeli democracy into peril. It was Lapid who used a mandate he could not fulfill to crown Naftali Bennett prime minister when Bennett had received barely 5% of the popular vote. The bare one-seat majority government formed by Bennett and Lapid, and held together with an anti-Zionist Islamist party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, barely lasted one year.
Not only does Netanyahu’s government aspire to bring Israel four years of much-needed electoral stability, it will also focus on fixing critical components of Israel’s political system and careful liberal-traditional balance, to ensure the Jewish state is not once again thrown into chaos by destabilizing progressive forces
Speaking at the Knesset as he introduced his sixth ruling coalition, Netanyahu stated, “This new government is determined to restore governance, peace and personal security to the citizens of Israel. I hear the opposition’s constant laments about ‘the end of the state’ and even ‘the end of democracy.’ Members of the opposition: Losing the election is not the end of democracy. It is the essence of democracy.”
While the left says that the new government is anti-democratic, those claims are part of a classic left-wing spin designed to change the meaning of the word: The incoming government is not anti-democratic. The incoming government is most certainly anti-progressive.
The coalition will quickly get to work reversing many of the progressive policies introduced by the outgoing government in key ministries, including the health, energy, environmental protection and education ministries.
And while Israel’s progressives, led by Lapid and an activist left-wing judicial system, believe they are the flag-bearers of democracy, it is the voters who decide who rules and ultimately, what rules are created.
Incoming Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana, who will control Israel’s legislative agenda said in his maiden address, “The sovereign is the people and not the court. The Knesset is the place to make decisions, it and no one else.”
The new government will attempt to alter the selection process for Supreme Court justices, who until now have essentially held a veto on their replacements, guaranteeing that the left-wing court remained homogeneous. The government will also seek to counter the court’s ability to shoot down legislation at will, by installing a parliamentary override clause. These maneuvers will create checks and balances that are standard in democracies but have long been absent between Israel’s executive, legislative and judicial branches.
And while the left accuses the new government of representing only a narrow portion of society (though that portion happens to be the majority), the government is committed to maintaining long-held status quos in the public realm that balanced Israel’s concurrent traditional and liberal tendencies.
Incoming Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, of the nationalist Religious Zionism Party, stated, “The people of Israel are wise and understand that all the campaigns conducted over the past few months that were designed only to instill fear have no truth to them. Rather, they reflect a lack of responsibility and a rift in society, and unfortunately, there are those who make a living out of such rifts.”
Smotrich insisted that the government “will serve everyone. With responsibility and out of a sense of mission to you all.”
As finance minister, Smotrich will have his hands full reeling in the rising cost of living due to inflation and soaring housing prices. And while concurrently serving as a minister within the Defense Ministry, Smotrich will act to strengthen Israel’s presence in the biblical provinces of Judea and Samaria–commonly known as the West Bank–where Palestinians have been carrying out illegal land grabs without repercussions. Smotrich will also remove the Civil Administration which governs the territories from the Defense Ministry, placing each administrative issue–such as housing or transportation–within its appropriate ministry.
The new government will also seek to restore security, which broke down during the short rule of the Bennett-Lapid government. Incoming National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has vowed to loosen overly strict rules of engagement for police officers, which have often put lives at risk and failed to prevent attacks before they take place.
As part of the coalition agreement, Ben-Gvir has demanded that overarching policy decisions be removed from an independent police force and handed instead to the government that was elected by the voters to implement policy.
The new government will also work to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold, and to further isolate a corrupt, terror-sponsoring Palestinian Authority, after the outgoing government opened its doors to the P.A. Outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz went as far as to invite P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to his home, and called him yesterday, on his final day in office.
Netanyahu also pledged to build upon the historic Abraham Accords he signed with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. In an interview with JNS ahead of the election, Netanyahu said he “intends to “make peace with Saudi Arabia” and “end the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all.”
Most important, the government will focus on strengthening Jewish values. It is the Jewish character of the state that makes it strong and unique. Progressives on the other hand seek for Israel to be a secular extension of Western Europe on the Eastern Mediterranean.
In his address at the Knesset, Smotrich noted that “it is both our obligation and our privilege to continue to strengthen our rich and glorious identity….We must never lose pride in who we are and what we are, or where we come from, or where we are headed.”
He added that “our Jewish identity is what gives us the right to live here and my prayer is that we should know how to deepen this identity, how to rejoice in it, ourselves and our children.”
The new government has the potential to score major accomplishments for a Jewish state that has come under progressive attack in recent years. The attacks continue even with the firm election of a right-wing government. Progressive politicians and left-wing media have been working tirelessly to sour liberal American Jews on the new government. These efforts serve no purpose other than to delegitimize Israel, in an era of increasing anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Hopefully, American Jewry will recognize the folly of this strategy and return to its strong support of the State of Israel as the past, present and future of the Jewish people.
That said, angry progressives are likely to stay bitter and stay vocal, giving the incoming government a mouthful at every opportunity.
Addressing the opposition, the media and the overly loud and disappointed minority, Netanyahu stated, “A democratic regime is tested first of all by the willingness of the losing side to accept the majority’s decision.”
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org
AND:
+++
+++
Israel Palestinian Conflict: The Truth About the West Bank -
++++++++++++++++++++++
TO FRIGHTEN, TO INTIMIDATE, TO FORCE INSANE CHANGE IT IS CRITICAL FOR RADICALS TO GO TOTHE EXTREME AND THEY DO.
+++
The Four Questions To Ask Climate Change Alarmists
BY EUGENE SLAVEN:
Regardless of which side of the climate change debate you’re on, the debate’s policy outcomes are consequential. If climate change is an existential threat, you have the duty to do something about it. If you believe climate change is largely an alarmist creation, then you will want to prevent alarmists from infringing on our liberties to avert a fictitious crisis.
For us skeptics – or “deniers” as we’re sometimes known – winning hearts and minds has proven inordinately difficult. The Alarmist Triumvirate of popular culture, most media, and most global political institutions, is a highly formidable opponent thanks to numbers and reach.
The dilemma for the skeptics is somewhat analogous to how an outnumbered army might fight a much bigger, much better-resourced opponent. As history demonstrates, the absolute worst strategy is to launch a direct, frontal attack. Unfortunately, that is precisely what us skeptics have been doing.
The frontal assault in the climate change context centers around talking points on the absurdity of accurately predicting long-term weather patterns, the efficacy of curbing emissions, and these programs’ economic impacts. While these are logical rebuttals, they do not weaken the triumvirate, which bombards skeptics with the 97% consensus claim. You can point to the climate’s undeniable capriciousness, but in the face of the 97% Consensus™ counterattack, the neutral parties will view you as the anti-science dolt.
The alternative is to force alarmists to defend key claims with concrete figures. Remarkably, alarmists have been mostly spared from the rigors of the scientific method. This is why they’ve gotten away with inane assertions about average global temperature increases and alleged increases in the frequency of hurricanes and other extreme weather events.
However, skeptics’ frontal attacks enable alarmists to debate climate change with zero nuance and unbending conviction that scientists have always cautioned against across every other discipline. Immutable scientific assumptions — most notably that the very nature of science demands that nothing is above questioning — are swept aside in favor of dismissing climate change skeptics as peddlers of scientific heresy.
To force alarmists into an actual scientific discussion, every debate on climate change should be grounded in these four questions.
1. Why is the change in global temperature between 1875 and today significant?
Here’s the Weather.gov table showing the average annual temperature by year from 1875 to 2021. During this period, the temperature fluctuated to 56.3 F, up 3.8 degrees from 52.5 F in 1875. Is that good, bad, or neutral? I honestly could not tell you. But according to the alarmists, this rise represents an existential threat. It’s time for them to explain why. Would any increase in temperature over this period constitute a cause for concern? A 2 degree increase? How about a 0.7 degree increase? Yes, no, maybe, and above all, why? This critical question forces alarmists to concede that “global warming is bad” is not a scientific argument.
2. How do you explain periods of global “cooling”?
Between 1934 and 2019, the average temperature dropped from 55.3 to 53.6 degrees. How do alarmists account for the 1.7 degree drop in this 85 year span? Why was the world warmer in 1934 than in 2019? And lest you’re accused of selection bias or some other such statistical chicanery, this data sample covers 85 years of the 146-year period. Curiously, the temperature increased from 53.6 in 2019 to 55.7 in 2020 — even though 2020 saw a sharp pandemic-driven decrease in CO2 emissions. The small sample size notwithstanding, this sort of granular analysis is entirely absent from the debate. Maybe there’s a reason for the occasional inverse relationship between CO2 and temperature — but has anyone ever explained it?
3. How much warming is okay before disaster strikes?
The Paris Agreement declares that the “goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 F), compared to pre-industrial levels.” But where did this number come from? No, seriously, how did scientists arrive at this number? Could alarmists produce a study showing how limiting temperature increases would save the planet?
Ask this question, sit back and enjoy your rhetorical checkmate.
4. What percent decrease in CO2 emissions will achieve the desired decrease in temperature?
The alarmists’ thesis implicitly boils down to this: if we decrease carbon emissions by X, global temperature increases will be limited by Y. But how does the Agreement’s emissions reduction proposal limit increases? If you’re going to argue that cutting CO2 emissions by nearly half in the next decade will limit global warming, at least show your work. Together with the alarmists’ inability to explain how much global warming is acceptable and how much is catastrophic, this gap in logic presents a perfect point of attack.
We’ve all heard the 97% Consensus™ claim ad nauseam. Where does it come from and who are the dissenting 3 percent? Presumably, they’re reputable scientists, or they would not be included in the breakdown. Is it fair to dismiss them because they’re in the minority, thereby subjecting science to majoritarian rule?” Are there 3% of reputable scientists who believe the earth is flat or that heart transplants are impossible or that nuclear physics is fake?
Could the positive results bias or the file drawer effect partially account for the 97% figure? How about the stark discrepancy in grants available to scientists who sound the alarm on global warming vs. the skeptics?
The claim that “the science is settled” is of course itself anti-scientific. Science is never settled. Newton settled it, then Einstein unsettled it, then Bohr settled it, and so on. Most scientists understand that every scientific discipline, with the notable exception of climate change, advances. Scientists who normally concede the fallibility of science gloss over the climate change debate without a shred of skepticism.
I, like probably most skeptics, blame politics. However, this assessment does nothing to weaken the alarmists’ position. It absolves opponents from having to argue concrete numbers and leaves them in a position they’re comfortable defending. These four questions force them to pull out numbers, which, as it turns out, are the death knell for the triumvirate’s position.
“Eugene Slaven is a freelance writer, and the author of the comic novel, A Life of Misery and Triumph and the political thriller, The Sorghum Saga. He is the founder of humorquotient.net, a hub for relentlessly original satirical comedy.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
HUGS and Biden's Best Ever? Bibi And Charles' Relationship. More Dark Money?
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
++++++++++++++++
Sending hugs:
https://twitter.com/Gabriele_
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Probably one of the best decisions Biden has ever made.
++++
Breaking News
White House Announces Military Partnership
(NewsGlobal.com)- The Biden administration has made a military move that some will see as controversial, while others have already celebrated the decision.
Earlier this week, the White House elevated Israel in terms of military planning. It comes at a time when the U.S. is re-focusing its efforts from the “war on terror” to potentially combating military efforts from the “big four” countries of Iran, North Korea, Russia and China.
As a result of this move, the intelligence community in the U.S. is ramping up its Hebrew language program so that it can spy on its top ally in the Middle East.
The Abraham Accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and several countries in the Arab world. Yet, with combat ending in Iraq and Afghanistan, Biden administration officials are seeing this as a great opportunity to incorporate Israel into this new regional alliance.
A senior intelligence official commented recently:
“Israel is coming out of the closet, allowed now to openly cooperate with the [U.S.] military while at the same time being denied access to another closet.”
What the official was referring to was the full world of intelligence in the U.S.
The official explained that some things such as targeting include a back-and-forth exchange under this new military alliance. At times when the interests of Israel and the U.S. might take different paths though, the U.S. will redouble its collection efforts.
This includes examples such as counterintelligence against spying from Israel or potentially uncovering secrets about the nuclear arsenal that Israel has stockpiled.
The change in military planning as it relates to Israel was codified by President Joe Biden last year when he signed the Unified Command Plan. This plan is the highest-level document that determines each command’s operation plan.
In 2021, the plan shifted Israel over to CENTCOM, or the Central Command, which is responsible for the entire Middle East. Before then, Israel was part of EUCOM, or the European Command.
That command oversaw military dimensions of the relationship with Israel, including working with them to defend Israel in only very specific circumstances against some of its neighboring countries.
The previous system, according to the Pentagon, allowed CENTCOM to build Arab allies without worrying about complicating the relationship with Israel, which to many of these countries is a sworn enemy. At the same time, it segregated Israel from being able to formally partner with CENTCOM, as well as participating in contingency plans against common enemies of the two sides.
The command, which is based in Tampa, commented after they were handed responsibility for Israel:
“CENTCOM will now work to implement the U.S. Government commitment to a holistic approach to regional security and cooperation with our partners. The easing of tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors subsequent to the Abraham Accords has provided a strategic opportunity for the United States to align key partners against shared threats in the Middle East. Israel is a leading strategic partner for the United States, and this will open up additional opportunities for cooperation with our U.S. Central Command partners while maintaining strong cooperation between Israel and our European allies.”
+++
Yet:
The European Union’s subversion of Israel -+++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile:
The religious culture war comes to Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu and King Charles turn out to have something in common, Op-ed.
By Melanie Phillips
(JNS) At the root of the convulsions over Israel’s new government lies the secular world’s hatred and terror of religion.
Put to one side, for now, the question of whether the hysterical predictions of extremism and the end of Israeli democracy are remotely likely to happen.
Park the fact that we don’t yet know how this new government will behave, and whether the pledge made by returning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will resist any extremist demands made by his religious allies is genuine or achievable.
Point your periscope instead at Britain, a country whose ability even now to punch culturally well above its weight tends to be ignored by people in both America and Israel.
Direct your gaze in particular at King Charles III, whose first Christmas message to the nation was broadcast last week.
While going out of his way in the address to affirm the depth of his Christian faith, he also name-checked Britain’s “churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and gurdwaras” as doing good works that expressed “loving our neighbor as ourselves.” He further declared that “the power of light overcoming darkness is celebrated across the boundaries of faith and belief.”
This was a deliberate attempt to stamp himself as the head of a family of faiths and cultures. The King is personally very open to other forms of spirituality. His attraction to Islam is well known. He is also deeply sympathetic to Judaism.
He was very close to Britain’s late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Recently, he visited London’s JW3 Jewish community center, where he beamed as he danced with Holocaust survivors and others.
And he paid a moving personal tribute to Rabbi Abraham Levy, the former head of Britain’s Sephardi community, who died last week. “May his memory be a blessing” said the King, using the traditional Jewish words of respect for the deceased.
Crucially, however, he understands that Christianity underpins British national identity, which itself depends on continuity.
That doesn’t mean other faiths aren’t welcome in Britain. It means that, if a nation is to remain united, it needs to have a religious cultural umbrella under which all can shelter.
America’s own doctrine of the separation of church and state may make this hard for some Americans to understand. However, Americans fool themselves if they think secularism holds their nation together, because biblical values infuse America’s core culture and its constitution.
Indeed, classical liberalism—the basis of Western modernity—holds that all citizens must adhere to the overarching core of the culture, such as democracy, sexual equality and one law for all.
Under that cultural umbrella, they are free to practice their own faith or traditions provided they don’t contradict these core precepts.
Left-wing ideologues, however, claim that biblical precepts do contradict core Western values. This is the reverse of the truth. Today’s progressive ideologies derive from the revolt against the biblical values that underpin Western civilization.
Leftists claim that only if the Bible is junked can everyone be treated with equal respect. But “equal respect” was in fact invented by the Hebrew Bible and is absolutely central to Judaism.
The problem is that the left confuses “equal respect” with identical treatment and outcomes, which they call “non-discrimination.” But also central to Judaism is the notion of discrimination between acts that build communal bonds and those that destroy community and nation.
This belief in moral discrimination and the importance of behavior is particular to Judaism. But the universalism that characterizes left-wing thinking negates Jewish particularism.
Left-wing universalism therefore undermines the idea of the nation state and the corresponding rule of law rooted in popular assent, both of which Judaism pioneered.
The notion being trumpeted by opponents of Israel’s new government that sexual libertarianism is normative is also entirely false. Traditional norms of sexual identity and behavior are laid down as non-negotiable in Jewish religious law, and are in turn foundational to Christianity.
It’s perfectly possible to stick to these religious precepts while pursuing policies that are humane, compassionate and just towards individuals and minority groups. But for the left, only its own “identicality” dogma is humane and compassionate.
In Britain, this has led to the insistence that public officials with conservative religious beliefs act against their faith. So Christian registrars are forced to officiate at gay adoptions, or Orthodox Jewish schools which never teach about sexuality are pressured to teach about homosexuality. Christian bakers have been forced to fight in court for the right not to bake a cake to support same-sex marriage.
In Israel, the left claims the new government will deprive LGBTQ people of the right to general medical treatment (essential to a classically liberal society). Religious Zionists in the coalition claim this is untrue, and they merely want to defend the right of Orthodox Jews not to be forced to act against their religious beliefs (essential to a classically liberal society).
It remains to be seen which of these perspectives turns out to be correct—if indeed this issue is allowed to emerge at all. But the left’s claim that if Israel departs from left-wing shibboleths it will enter a dark and oppressive place is wide of the mark.
Far from creating a liberal, tolerant society, progressive ideologies are profoundly illiberal and coercive. Far from producing the brotherhood of mankind, left-wing universalism sets group against group in a battle for power over each other.
A constitutional monarchy, such as exists in Britain, promotes unity because it exists above politics and therefore above division. This was the great insight of King David, who unified the tribes of ancient Israel to form a coherent nation and whose limited monarchy was the inspiration and template for the British Crown.
King Charles’s patent desire to bring the British people together has transformed him from a figure widely disparaged and distrusted as cold and remote into a person viewed affectionately as the benign and genial grandfather of the nation.
The State of Israel, of course, doesn’t have a monarchy. Nor does America, which is being pulled apart over these cultural issues.
For all the unifying strength of the monarchy he represents, however, King Charles is actually in a lonely and perilous position. For the prevailing culture in Britain is actively undermining the religious continuity he realizes is essential.
No political party in Britain is prepared to face down and defeat the culture warriors writing women and conservatives out of the public sphere. No party is prepared to stop children being taught the lie that Britain and the West were born in the original sins of colonialism and oppression. No party is prepared to conserve and defend the classical liberal settlement underpinning freedom, tolerance and democracy. And no party is prepared to challenge radical, pagan environmentalism—to which the King, with his belief in the spiritual unity of all creation, is unfortunately also deeply attached.
In America, the parallel collapse of conservatives’ understanding of what was at risk and needed to be defended led to the implosion of the Republican Party and the rise to power in 2016 of Donald Trump as the only way to defeat the cultural predations of the left.
In Israel, the collapse of the moderate, religious Yamina Party meant that those who believe the combination of Jewish religious integrity with a modern economy, scientific advancement and the duties of citizenship is crucial to Israel’s identity and survival felt they were left with no political representation - although the Religious Zionist party believes the same.
They have been presented instead with what the media led them to believe is a stark choice between religious zealots in one camp and left-wingers in the other screaming about the end of democracy while urging insurrection against an elected democratic government—and with Netanyahu holding the line against the extremism on either side.
Considering the way Netanyahu has been characterized as beyond the pale, this is indeed an irony. He and King Charles, it turns out, have something rather crucial in common
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir Guardian Angel has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy. Go to melaniephillips.substack.com to access her work.
Finally:
Israel’s Population Approaches 10M as 2022 Draws to a Close
By Hana Levi Julian
The population of the Jewish State grew by 2.2 percent over the course of 2022, reaching 9.656 million souls, according to the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israel also lost 52,000 citizens, who died in 2022, including 4,000 expats living abroad for more than a year.
A total 73.6 percent (7.106 million) Israelis are Jewish; 21.1 percent are Arabs (2.037 million) and 5.3 percent (513,000) are various others, including Russian-speaking immigrants to the country who are not Jewish.
About 38 percent of the population increase – 78,000 people, higher than the 1.8 percent growth of 2021 – is due to immigration, 80 percent of whom hailed from Ukraine and Russia. The other 62 percent of growth is due to births of new citizens – 178,000 babies in the Jewish State.
Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Foreign Billionaire Funding the Dem Attack on Hunter Biden Investigation
By Daniel Greenfield
“We are proud Americans speaking up against an extreme agenda that is putting money and power over everyday Americans,” Courage for America’s mission statement claims.
If you have any doubt whatsoever that CFA is an American organization, its home page is decorated with a flag draped over a barn. The ‘O’ in its logo even includes flag symbolism.
CFA has announced that it’s “forming a council of proud Americans” to fight Republican investigations into the foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden clan.
Waving the flag to cover up the intimidation of elected officials investigating dirty deals with Chinese and Russian oligarchs is a new low even for Biden and his cronies.
Will Hansjörg Wyss, the Swiss billionaire allegedly backing CFA, be on the council of proud Americans? It would be awkward for the foreign tycoon to sit on a “council of proud Americans” since he is not, as far as even the media has been able to determine, an American citizen.
Instead, he appears to be living in America under an investor visa.
That hasn’t stopped the wealthy European from using his fortune to drastically influence American politics with the complicity of the IRS, the FEC and the rest of the government.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Wyss, who was accused of getting rich while killing patients, has broken the rules. And nothing says “proud Americans” fighting for “every American” like a secretive organization that doesn’t list its staff and appears to be funded by a foreign billionaire.
Wyss co-founded Synthes, a medical device manufacturer focused on repairing broken bones. In 2010, Synthes pled guilty to illegally experimenting on patients: its president, and its spine division president and two other executives were sentenced to prison. Even though a manager testified that Wyss had made the decision not to go through clinical trials, and owned half the company, he was not charged and has gone on funding the extreme causes of the Left.
The 5 Americans who died were not so lucky. Some of the dead, like Barbara Marcelino, showed signs of the cement used by Wyss’ company, in their lungs.
Wyss’ Hub Project has poured its money into everything from Democrat redistricting efforts to automatic voter registration with a massive impact on our elections. But this time the Hub appears to be focused on playing defense for Democrats against GOP investigations.
“Our goal is to go on offense against the new House majority,” said Zac Petkanas, Hillary’s former rapid response director, and a political strategist now working on behalf of Courage for America, bragged. “We are going to be pointing out the things that those investigations are distracting from.”
And who better to distract Americans from those investigations into Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals than a shadowy dark money group allegedly funded by a foreign billionaire?
NBC News has reported that Courage for America has a “seven-figure budget and support from the Hub Project, a giant Democratic dark money network, the group plans a robust operation including polling, paid advertising and social media campaigns, along with traditional opposition research and communications.”
But what NBC didn’t bother to mention was that the Hub Project appears to have been set up by the Wyss Foundation. A complaint by Americans for Public Trust noted in a filing that the Hub Project’s business plan “recommended that the group ‘be solely funded by the Wyss Foundation at the outset’ and that it would work behind the scenes to “dramatically shift the public debate and policy positions of core decision makers.”
Courage for America wants to target the Republican House majority and help Democrats fight off investigations into scandals like Hunter Biden and his foreign business operations.
GOP members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee have found 50 countries where the Biden family has looked into doing business. And they also intend to investigate Joe Biden’s role in some of those ventures. These hearings will potentially look into everything from Hunter’s Chinese-backed cobalt mine deal to a Russian oligarch. And the Democrats will defend against allegations that Biden, his brother and his son engaged in dubious business deals with shady foreign tycoons by turning to yet another shady foreign tycoon.
“The American people need to be introduced and educated about the extremist agenda of this new House and also who these members are,” CFA’s Petkanas blustered.
The CFA is so open that its site doesn’t even mention Petkanas, or Naveed Shah: its spokesman. Not only are CFA’s donors secret, but so are its staff and leadership. Instead of listing its staff, CFA references its “council” to divert attention from who is running the show.
That’s suspicious behavior for an organization that claims that it’s all about transparency. CFA is even working with another group calling itself the Congressional Integrity Project which vows to expose the “reality behind Republicans’ politically motivated oversight and investigations targeting President Biden and Democrats.” Nothing says integrity like a dark money machine helping Biden and his cronies intimidate elected officials investigating his corrupt activities.
The level of coordination between CFA, CIP and the Biden administration was revealed when the Washington Post mentioned that, “while the CIP is not formally tied to the White House, its leaders have spoken with President Biden’s aides and it recently brought on Jeff Peck, a former chief-of-staff to Biden from his time in the Senate.”
Biden appears to be covertly coordinating with a dark money machine group funded by a foreign billionaire to stop investigations into his dealings with foreign business interests.
If that’s not impeachable conduct, what is?
“These are sham investigations,” Kyle Herrig of CIP fumed. “We’re going to leave no stone unturned. No one has done the investigative research we’ve done on these investigators. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“We have a multimillion-dollar budget, and we’re staffing up with a team of researchers and communicators,” he warned.
Where does that “multimillion-dollar budget” come from?
Dark money means that no one knows. The Washington Examiner couldn’t find anyone at CIP’s supposed offices and its spokesperson wouldn’t even provide a name.
This plot to fight investigations into corruption and abuses by the Biden administration has only revived questions about Wyss and his money machine. And the legality of his ongoing efforts to influence our political system for the benefit of the Democrats and the Left.
This is the phenomenon discussed in Internal Radical Service by David Horowitz and John Perazzo. The pamphlet from the David Horowitz Freedom Center began our project of exposing the abuses of the tax code by the political operations of the Left. While the IRS investigates conservative nonprofits on behalf of its allies in the White House, it allows leftists foundations and nonprofits, especially those allied with Biden, to flout the law and corrupt our system.
Biden’s effort to obstruct the investigations into the family business rely on a tangled network that includes David Brock’s Facts First USA, which we previously investigated, and groups which appear to derive their support from a foreign billionaire. This is the definition of corruption.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The GOP could solve several problems by appointing Trump as Speaker. He would get things done and could be required to sign a pledge he would not run for president.
+++
Kevin McCarthy or Someone Else? How U.S. House Picks a Speaker
GOP leader is top candidate before Jan. 3 vote but must win over some opponents
By Eliza Collins
Usually the speaker is elected with little suspense. This time things are expected to be at least a little bumpy, because of the thin Republican margin and a determined bloc of GOP dissidents who oppose Mr. McCarthy.
In the past several cycles, candidates have been able to sew up support before the vote, even if they faced opposition ahead of time. If the California Republican’s bid fails on the first ballot, it will be the first time in about a century that the majority party’s candidate is unable to get enough votes in the initial tally. The House could take further rounds of votes until ultimately selecting Mr. McCarthy or compromising on a different candidate.
Here is how the speaker vote will work.
When does the vote take place?
The House votes on the speaker at the start of a new Congress or if a speaker dies or leaves office. At the beginning of a new term, the House meets at noon Jan. 3, and the speaker vote is the first vote members take, even before they are sworn into office. The speaker vote is done by voice, with members calling out the name of the candidate they are supporting.
Who is running for speaker?
The majority party and a minority party will both put up a candidate for speaker. Republicans have chosen Mr. McCarthy, and Democrats will put forward Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is succeeding Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California as the party’s leader. Other lawmakers can put their names in as well. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who opposes Mr. McCarthy’s bid, has said he is running for speaker. In a vote in November for the GOP nomination for speaker, Mr. McCarthy drew 188 votes, while Mr. Biggs garnered 31.
Who is opposed to Kevin McCarthy?
Five Republicans have said they would stand together and oppose Mr. McCarthy: Mr. Biggs, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Montana’s Matt Rosendale and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Others have been critical of Mr. McCarthy but haven’t said how they would vote. If that core group of five sticks together, Mr. McCarthy won’t have enough votes to be elected speaker, assuming all Democrats oppose him. But it isn’t known who would draw enough support as an alternative pick. Other Republicans who back Mr. McCarthy have said he is the only candidate they would vote for.
What do the McCarthy critics want?
The lawmakers have different reasons for opposing Mr. McCarthy, and some have indicated nothing would change their minds.
Mr. Gaetz, for example, has long been a critic of Mr. McCarthy. Mr. Biggs has said that he doesn’t believe Mr. McCarthy will be a strong enough foe of President Biden.
Some other Republicans, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Chip Roy of Texas, remain uncommitted. They have asked for rules changes, including one that would make it easier to oust the speaker. So far, Mr. McCarthy has declined to support such a change.
How many votes does a candidate need to win on Jan. 3?
To be elected speaker, a lawmaker must win a majority of those voting. The House normally has 435 members, but there is currently one vacancy. Still, the total number needed to win if every member votes is 218 votes.
The House of Representatives is preparing to elect its new speaker. WSJ’s Natalie Andrews explains who is in the running and what is at stake for both parties. Photo illustration: Adele Morgan
The House is set to be split 222-212. That means Mr. McCarthy can lose no more than four votes, assuming all Democrats vote against him. If members are absent or vote “present”—instead of for a specific candidate—the threshold goes down.
What role do Democrats play?
Mr. McCarthy has said he wants to be elected speaker with just Republicans and doesn’t want the help of any Democrats. None have said they would vote for him, as typically the minority party votes for its own nominee.
It is possible some Democrats could vote present rather than for a candidate, which would lower the current 218 threshold required for Mr. McCarthy to be elected. That would require an agreement from Democrats to help Mr. McCarthy. Anything offered to get those Democrats could also turn off conservative Republicans—and Mr. McCarthy could end up losing even more of his own members. There is no indication that Mr. McCarthy has made any deals with Democrats.
At least one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, has said allies of Mr. McCarthy asked him to switch parties to vote for Mr. McCarthy, but he turned them down. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy said at the time that the calls weren’t made at his request.
What happens if no one gets a majority in the vote?
If the House completes the first round and no candidate has gotten a majority of those voting, another vote can be called. The last time that happened was in 1923. That process can continue as long as it takes for a lawmaker to secure enough votes. The votes can take place while conversations are going on in the background or votes can end for a day and give more time for negotiating.
“This would definitely be novel for the party nominee to go to the floor and not get it done on the first ballot, but again, we don’t know if we are in that situation because people love to bargain,” said Matthew Glassman a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.
In December 1855—before the date was set in January—lawmakers gathered for the speaker vote but repeatedly failed to get a majority. It took 133 votes and until February before the House elected a speaker—and only then because the House voted to change the rules to allow the speaker to be elected by a plurality rather than the majority, Mr. Glassman said.
If this goes on for a while, what happens in Congress?
Because the speaker vote is the first vote members take in a new Congress, if it isn’t resolved quickly, the House will come to a standstill. Lawmakers can’t vote on legislation, work on their committees or do any other business until a speaker is chosen.
Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thursday, December 29, 2022
"My People" And Antisemitism.
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of late I have been posting a lot about the increase in antisemitism and the impact on "my people."
As antisemitic events rise, I believe this signifies all is not well in the world. People are uncertain, frightened, not happy, Covid confused and it reflects itself in negative thinking and anti-social actions. Also the influx of so many radical Islamists into our country, most particularly Palestinians, has resulted in the spread of false commentary and lies and the mass media loves to stir the pot because controversy sells and they take comfort in aligning with their obeisance to Democrats.
Finally, Pelosi abdicated and turned her party's message over to the radicals led by AOC and her band of self-absorbed ignoramuses.
Why Jews, until Israel, have chosen certain professions is because so many others were closed to them. When you have to flee you cannot take land with you nor can you take all your possessions so they developed their intellect, dealt in skills pertaining to smaller items like diamond cutting and made loans to foresters. Diamonds are transportable and possess a high value content relative to size etc.
Now that we have a nation of our own, which we had to defend after being given it by The UN, we have proven developing our intellect was not a wasteful endeavor. But we also proved we can farm and cultivate with the best.
An attached article entitled": "THE JEWS" By Debbie Jones Thornton is a bit boastful but also quite factual.
The fact that we disproved the haters heightens jealousies, particularly among those who thought Israelis would lose all the wars thrust upon them.
The Palestinians are among the biggest losers for two reasons. First, though they were urged, by the Israelis, to remain in their homes, they fled thinking they would be able to return and have more.
Second, they succumbed to greed and lousy leadership. With respect to the latter, nothing has changed. Palestinians have been treated as pawns while their leadership's bank accounts grew astronomically. Like black hustlers, Palestinian leaders have played the West for fools while maintaining the refugee status of their people. Israel, meanwhile, has taken in and resettled tens of thousand of refugees why have not the Palestinians? The main reason is UNWRA workers have no incentive to lose their 'cushy' jobs and the money flows, to Palestinian leaders, would stop if the refugee problem was resolved.
I am not suggesting Israel's decisions, with respect to Palestinians, have always been ones of munificence but history is replete with Palestinian rejections. Also, Palestinians seem to prefer killing Israelis over living peacefully with them and when they are not able to commit murders they resort to stirring up trouble by resorting to lies and barring others of their various freedoms, ie campus protests etc.
Am I biased, for sure, but what I have written is also factual.
Having said the above, I also am very disheartened when many of "my crowd" have overthought by using distorted intellect, done great and disruptive harm and engaged in terrible anti-social activities.
Here Karl Marx, the Epstein's, Weinstein's, Schiff's, Schumer's, Zuckerberg's, Fink's, Madoff's, Milken's, Soros' come to mind among hundreds of others. These renegades are a blight on myself and those like me who make every effort to be good, law abiding and generous citizens.
Their aberrant behaviour and radical anti-capitalist and democratic ideas allow those seeking to project their prejudice an easy path. Our numbers make us vulnerable and we only have ourselves to look to so we must learn to outsmart the antisemites. We must not allow anxiety to dictate our response. We are a miraculous people. While antisemitic acts are rising the number of those who harbor such prejudice is decreasing and we can take comfort from that fact.
We must never forget we are an eternal people and we must never disavow our connection to God. We must not shy away from our identity and we must remain united for in unity there is strength.
These truths are equally applicable to America's "deplorables" whose voices have been stilled by intimidation and an out of control government that has become a threat to our freedoms.as have the elites who seek to maintain power at all costs.
++++++++++
What Say You? Trump's CongressionalTax Escape.
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
+++++++++++++
This from a dear Christian friend and fellow memo reader. What the attached suggests is once we have taken God out of our lives the world has truly gone in the wrong direction.If I have written this once, I have done so enumerable times. Man must have something beyond self to challenge his morality, to awaken his reason for living or otherwise he lives an empty life.
I embrace everything the attached raises and advocates.
What say you?
+++
We say Christmas Tree
Apparently, the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year, which prompted CBS presenter Steven Levy to present this piece.
The following was written by Steven Levy and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My confession:
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat...
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school... The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Steven Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about.. And we said okay.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail, and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Apparently, the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year, which prompted CBS presenter Steven Levy to present this piece.
The following was written by Steven Levy and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
My confession:
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat...
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school... The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Steven Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about.. And we said okay.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail, and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Democrats want to embarrass Trump because he hired accountants who used the tax laws to his advantage and probably paid little, if anything, in taxes. The attached discusses how Congress allowed this to happen. Will the mass media tell the truth or try to focus on what little Trump paid using the law?
I suspect what will happen is that Congress will wind up with egg on it's own face.
+++
How Congress Cut Trump’s Taxes
He has benefited from every loophole that lawmakers provided to real-estate businesses.
By Jay Starkman
The House Ways and Means Committee plans to release Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday and has already put out a report faulting the former president for paying little or no income tax in recent years. But the fault lies with Congress. Mr. Trump benefited from every tax loophole that lawmakers have made available to real-estate businesses. These include deferral of income, conversion of ordinary income into lower-taxed capital gains, nontaxable income, tax credits, and artificial tax losses that ordinary taxpayers can’t obtain.
Entrepreneurs who purchase or construct a building can obtain depreciation deductions, together with deductions for mortgage interest on the loan. Using “cost segregation,” they can accelerate the depreciation deduction. A large mortgage with a low down payment magnifies the interest deduction. As the property should appreciate in value, it is arguable that a resulting tax loss is artificial. One can borrow against the appreciation to purchase more properties and investments, gaining more deductions.
Unlike the rest of us, “real estate professionals” are exempt from the passive-loss limitations on their rental properties. All their rental losses are deductible. Net operating losses can be carried forward indefinitely until used.
Gains from selling real estate used in a business or for investment can be deferred indefinitely by exchanging the property for another (so-called 1031 exchanges), usually in a three-way transaction using intermediaries, that resembles an outright sale. Should the seller add equity or debt to the exchange, he can obtain a more expensive property with more depreciation and interest deductions. Property sold at a loss can result in an immediate tax deduction.
There are rehabilitation credits, such as for preserving an old building facade. Sometimes a developer will tear down an old building, preserve lower exterior walls at great expense and erect a new skyscraper inside the facade. Credits helped Mr. Trump renovate the Old Post Office in Washington into a hotel. And there is a credit for low-income housing, which might not get built without generous tax incentives.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created new energy credits that can be sold for cash by entities that can’t use them because they pay no income tax.
Conservation easements provide a triple benefit. The donor gets a large charitable deduction for donating a partial interest in property that he continues to own and use. The donor escapes the capital-gains tax on the donation because he didn’t sell it. The deduction can be excessive based on “highest and best use” rather than fair market value. The new appropriations act limits this deduction to 2.5 times a taxpayer’s basis in property held less than three years, but only for partnership syndications, not individuals. A better standard would require deduction values to be based on recent comparable property sales.
As a practicing CPA, I’ve seen how real-estate deductions can result in zero income tax for clients with high incomes. These are legal and proper deductions even if they seem unfair. One reason for low tax liability is laws intended to stimulate job creation, housing, offices, all the materials that go into building and supporting them, and the great economic activity that real estate generates for decades following completion. Real estate isn’t an easy business. Some investors go broke, while others do get rich and pay little income tax for energizing an economy that benefits us all.
The 39-page Ways and Means report, written by staffers from the Joint Committee on Taxation, provides a road map on issues that might warrant examination in auditing Mr. Trump’s returns. The report stresses: “We express no opinion regarding whether any adjustment, or increase or decrease in tax, would have resulted if these issues had been pursued on examination.”
His tax preparers may have to explain why they signed returns with so many issues. Mr. Trump’s Form 1040s include more than 400 K-1 pass-through-entity forms and up to 27 sole-proprietor self-employed Schedule Cs a year, among other complexities. The Internal Revenue Service failed to audit his returns in a timely manner because it initially delayed the audit, then assigned only one examiner (later increased to three). None of the audits have been completed. Again, blame lawmakers for making the tax code so complex and arcane that it may well be impossible to provide a definitive analysis of Mr. Trump’s returns.
Democrats propose codifying a requirement to audit and release the president’s tax returns. That should be expanded to include every member of Congress. “There are not many Senators or Representatives who sell their vote for money, and it is pretty well known who those few are,” Senate sergeant-at-arms David Barry wrote in 1933. Barry was promptly fired after a 49-year career. “An honest man does not get rich,” said House Speaker Sam Rayburn, whose savings after 48 years totaled only $15,000 (equivalent of around $150,000 today) at his death in 1961.
Other presidents had issues that would have warranted IRS examination. Franklin D. Roosevelt deducted losses from his “cotton plantation” in Warm Springs, Ga., and his “farm” in Hyde Park, N.Y. Eleanor Roosevelt failed to report more than $100,000 she received from her radio broadcasts. How did Lyndon B. Johnson, whose income came from a government salary, become one of the richest men ever to occupy the Oval Office, worth an estimated $20 million in 1963? (Again, that’s the equivalent of nearly 10 times that sum in today’s dollars.) Ronald Reagan used two cattle tax shelters to make his 1970 taxes negligible. Jimmy Carter’s taxes were sheltered by investment tax credits from his peanut farm, which reduced his 1976 tax to zero.
Mr. Trump isn’t unusual in aggressively claiming tax deductions—only in being the most scrupulously examined president ever, with no credible allegations yet that he achieved any of his or his family’s wealth through corruption. How many members of Congress can say the same?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also refused to publicize his tax returns when he successfully ran for governor of California in 2003, said: “There’s a balance here between what is a prurient interest versus why this data is thought to be important to disclose.”
Mr. Starkman is a certified public accountant in Atlanta and author of “The Sex of a Hippopotamus: A Unique History of Taxes and Accounting.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++
An informed investment person I spoke with does not believe BIBI will attack Iran but will continue the program of disrupting their nuclear progress and denying any culpability as they have been doing. His rationale is plausible but if Iran reaches beyond where Israel must not allow them to go all bets are off.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEXT BY Avi Jorisch. New Preamble. Op Ed. Gaslighting? Coal Demand And Usage All Time High.
Brian feeling better as is Dagny so they are coming after all. Arriving very late tonight (Thursday, Dec. 29.)
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
.jpg)
%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
.jpg)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My dear friend, Avi Jorisch, has published another book
+++
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
I am delighted to announce today the publication of my new book NEXT: A Brief History of the Future (Gefen Publishing House).
“In the coming decades, planet Earth will undergo the unimaginable equivalent of twenty thousand years of progress. NEXT demonstrates brilliantly how we are in a position to fundamentally shape our destiny by leveraging exponential technologies to achieve our most sublime hopes.”
- Meir Brand, CEO Google Middle East
Star Trek–loving inventors who 3D print in space, vegan researchers who replicate the composition and chemical structures of meat in a lab, and mad scientists who save humans from terrible disorders by cutting and pasting genes like letters in a document. These are a few of the remarkable stories featured in Next, an in-depth look at the coming global challenges and the transformative innovations that will help make our world a better place.
Imperiled by hunger, pollution, and global warming, we are more at risk of driving ourselves into extinction than ever before. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Despite this existential crisis, we’re in an era of remarkable wealth and innovation that could allow us to fundamentally change our destiny—to cure the sick, feed the hungry, and help the needy.
Next tells the story of 13 inspiring innovators around the world who are already tackling these challenges and transforming our species. Call it Humanity 2.0. Every individual and venture featured in Next is having an outsized impact on human history. Their stories show what the future might look like. But most of all, they will give readers hope. As the science fiction writer William Gibson once put it: “The future is already here. It is just not very evenly distributed.”
I would be delighted if you considered purchasing the book on Amazon and leaving a review.
I’ll keep you posted on developments and media appearances—I'd be delighted if you’d spread the word about the book through your social media platforms.
With warmest regards,
Avi
+++++++++++++++++++
NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION
"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the
blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt
ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of
Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."
ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them,
but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more
than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is my pet peeve...get an education and go to work....don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)
ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm
other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone,
don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric
chair.
ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of
others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other
citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you
away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color
TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and
vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (Lastly....)
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!
If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you do not, who will?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My more liberal friend writes An insightful New Year op ed:
+++
NEW YEAR MESSAGE
Finding Hope for the New Year
Future historians may come to regard 2022 as a hinge in history, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. Major war returned to Europe, with its attendant threats of nuclear strikes, and the door closed firmly shut on the U.S. policy of strategic engagement with China.
Yes, the past twelve months did bring some good news but, overall, 2022 brought more bad news than good news. For example….
Turmoil rocked British politics with three prime ministers in just two months while also losing the world’s longest reigning monarch.
The World’s Humanitarian Crises Deepened with some 32 million people around the world currently classified as refugees forced by circumstances to leave their countries. In addition, when the internally displaced—that is, people who have been forced from their homes but continue to live in their native country—are included, the number balloons to more than 100 million, the highest number in human history.
Inflation returned with price spikes driven by a combination of demand and supply issues.
Climate change Intensified as once rare extreme weather events became commonplace. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in April that the effects of climate change will soon become irreversible.
Israel solidly votes for a right wing government which has already sent up signals that it will flirt with racist laws and policies that could imperil the country’s democratic principles.
Yet there was also some good/hopeful news….
Iranians Protested and mounted the most significant challenge to the rule of the Ayatollahs since they came to power in 1979.
COVID eased as the world appears to have turned the corner on the first global pandemic in a century.
However, perhaps the worst/saddest news was Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine signifying that the post World War II phrase “Never Again” has lost all of its meaning. This was a return to the world’s historical position as a place where any one country can covet the land of another and, if desired, simply invade it, kill its citizens and declare said land as now part of the invading country. And, once again, the world lets it happen and wrings its hands in frustration instead of stopping the madman cold.
Given all of this, how do we approach 2023 with hope and optimism for our future and that of the world?
For an answer I turned to the former Chief Rabbi of England, Rabbi Dr. Lord Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, who wrote
“Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to hope. The Hebrew Bible is not an optimistic book. It is, however, one of the great literatures of hope.”
Notice the insightful distinction between optimism and hope. The charge here is to be active, not passive. The passive act is to be optimistic. But the active act, needing courage, is driven by hope so that attendant to that activity, one can actually change the world for the better.
All of us who share the concern for the future of humanity at this dangerous junction in world history, need to commit ourselves to be courageously active so that our hopes will be realized and we will each become instruments of that realization.
Let us commit ourselves as we close out 2022 and enter 2023 to be agents of hope, to use the talents given to us by our Creator, to make the world a better place so that our optimism will become reality borne on the wings of our combined courage.
May everyone have a year of good health, happiness and fulfillment.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The FBI not Ray Milland.
+++
FBI Gaslights America Over Twitter Files
By Ben Weingarten
The FBI is gaslighting the American people over the stunning—if unsurprising—evidence that it engaged in a conspiracy with Big Tech to silence wrong thinkers in violation of the First Amendment, as the Twitter Files have revealed.
Meanwhile, in attacking those who refuse to be gas lit, the bureau is also telegraphing that it would respond to Congress investigating its hyper-politicization and weaponization with relentless information warfare.
The gaslighting comes in the preeminent law enforcement agency's "move along, nothing to see here" response to the Twitter Files. It stated that "correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements." The FBI, it says, "provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers."
Here is the kind of conduct the FBI wants you to believe is completely normal:
Grooming Twitter executives for months in advance of the release of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story to compel them to kill the story.
Referring myriad tweets concerning inherently political matters to Twitter's censorship team for purging—so many tweets, in fact, that during one such bulk censorship request, a Twitter employee described the review of the "possible violative content" as a "monumental undertaking."
Flagging specific Twitter accounts for the platform to take action against—up to and including suspension—apparently for engaging in thoughtcrime of promoting "civic misinformation" by making jokes related to the 2020 election.
Paying Twitter $3.4 million for its time and effort censoring Americans.
When a domestic intelligence agency is making repeated contacts with your executives about "content moderation," lodging specific censorship requests directly and via cutout—amid pressure from federal lawmakers to do the same—those "requests" start to look a lot more like demands.
The flimsy national security pretext used to justify the FBI's censorship requests, often targeting random, unpopular accounts, is equally outrageous.
The FBI used allegations of "foreign interference" as a cover to pursue domestic wrong think, as its 80-agent-strong Foreign Interference Task Force coordinated with Twitter. For their part, Twitter executives seemed to find scant evidence of such interference—a throwback to Russia Gate, and the targeting of the Trump campaign on the accusation advisor Carter Page was a Russian asset.
Authorities also apparently sought to treat "election misinformation" as a dire threat—a pretext perhaps more disturbing than the security apparatus' now-familiar crying wolf over Russian interference.
It's well known by now that the security state has linked skepticism over election integrity to "insurrection," and sought to cast skeptics as domestic violent extremists.
But that is only the beginning. Consider the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) position on this matter—one that the FBI seemed to embrace as it participated alongside CISA in meetings with Twitter and other Big Tech companies in the run-up to the 2020 election.
CISA has stretched its mandate of protecting election infrastructure to include targeting purported "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" regarding elections—that is, to combatting ideas it claims threaten physical equipment.
The agency's director, Jen Easterly, has said that "the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important."
In other words, thought policing is now a national security imperative.
Easterly has pledged that CISA will "work with our partners in the private sector," including social media companies, "to ensure that the American people have the facts that they need to help protect our critical infrastructure."
- After months of controversy, Elon Musk is now at the head of one of the most influential social networks on the planet, whose "tremendous potential" he has promised to unleash.
This is exactly what CISA did in conjunction with the FBI and its putatively private sector "partners" in 2020—before Easterly assumed her position.
This "cognitive infrastructure" paradigm is in keeping with President Joe Biden's National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, which prevails today. That document calls for "Enhancing faith in American democracy" by "contend[ing] with an information environment that challenges healthy democratic discourse" rife with "disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media." The president declared in the strategy that he intends "to counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence."
Given the security state's meddling with America's digital public square in 2020, imagine what it is up to now.
This brings us to the FBI's telegraphing of a relentless information operation to come. The bureau claimed, in response to the Twitter Files, that its collusion with Twitter was completely above board, and "conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency."
The agency, in other words, isn't in the wrong. You are, for pointing out its discrediting behavior. And what's more, as America faces a "dangerous pandemic of mis-, dis-, and mal-information," you may well be a contributor to domestic violent extremism, if not a terrorist yourself.
This echoes the FBI's messaging in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid, when it played the victim, while chiding critics of that unprecedented act and claiming they posed a threat to law enforcement.
Such a response can only have two possible explanations: either the FBI can't defend its behavior, or it genuinely believes that behavior to be legitimate.
Either would be disastrous for this country.
As evidence of FBI corruption continues to emerge, Senator Josh Hawley has said we need to "have a conversation about [its] future," and endorsed a Church-style Commission to investigate its activities.
House conservatives have demanded the next speaker establish such a panel.
Incoming House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) recently called for Congress to withhold all funds from the FBI until it can get to the bottom of the agency's collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans.
As such threats to bring transparency and accountability to the FBI grow, it and other agencies will get more aggressive in their attacks on critics.
Courageous leaders must prepare for an onslaught of information warfare aimed at discrediting them and their effort to bring to justice those in a security apparatus run amok—to seek the truth, unbowed.
A return to law and order in this country depends on it.
Ben Weingarten is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, fellow at the Claremont Institute and senior contributor to The Federalist. He is the author of American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party (Bombardier, 2020). Ben is the founder and CEO of Change Up Media LLC, a media consulting and production company. Subscribe to his newsletter at bit.ly/bhwnews, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Coal demand and usage is at an all time high. Biden blew it once again.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)