Explaining Israel's Elections

 

It’s a bit complex, but I’ll take a shot at  explaining Israel’s elections.

Unlike America, Israel has a parliamentary system, an unfortunate inheritance from previous British rule.Among other things, that means multiple political parties rather than just two.

Israel, being a small country likewise lacks states and therefore, an electoral college. Instead, seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament are doled out based on the percentage of votes each party gets. Parties who get less than 3.5percent get zero seats, known in Israel as ‘mandates.’

To win and control the Knesset, a party needs 61 mandates out of 120. Since this rarely if ever happens, once the results are in the horsetrading starts, with the leading parties swapping cabinet positions (AKA portfolios) with other parties to get to 61.

Last time, no one party was able to get to 61 and form a government. Ditto this time, at least so far.

The two leading parties are Likud and a new left wing party called Blue and White. While most of the population voted for Right Wing and religious parties, they still lack 3 mandates. Blue and White lack a few more than that, but the only way they get even to that number is by bringing the anti-Israel Joint Arab List parties into government and of course, acceding to their demands. Blue And White leaders Benny Gantz and Yair (Tommy) Lipid already said they would bring the Arab parties  into  their coalition and comply with various demands. The Arab list concurred but changed their minds based on Gantz’s military record, ambivalent as it is.


The man who is really holding the cards is Avigdor Liberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu. This party is primarily a party of Russian immigrants to Israel and a Nationalist party on the right. They ordinarily would be in Likud’s governing coalition and with 7 mandates would give Netanyahu and Likud an easy majority. What’s stopping them is Liberman’s intense dislike of Netanyahu ever since Bibi fired him as Defense Minister. He also has resentment towards the religious right wing parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, and they return the favor. On to other hand, if he were to try and take his party into Ganz’s coalition,his party would likely revolt because of blue and White’s willingness to bring the anti-Israel Arab Parties into government. So he’s sitting tight and enjoying every minute of the chaos he’s creating.

This will likely end in one of these ways:

• An uneasy ‘unity government ‘ that would  likely crash soon. After all, some 26% voted for the Blue and White party, but the Israeli electorate in general, and particularly the 75% who are Jews, voted  for continuing the country’s present abandonment of socialism and for right-wing parties.
• Netanyahu going behind the scenes and getting those three mandates he needs from Liberman’s party by offering them ministries and positions.
• Another election, something I doubt would happen but it is possible.

So that in a nutshell is my shot at explaining Israel’s Elections.



Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

Notre Dame Burns, And A Civilization With It

 


Today, Paris's centuries old cathedral Notre Dame caught on fire and is in the process of being destroyed. The world famous spire and roof of the Gothic cathedral are gone, and the wooden structure that's  supporting the roof is being destroyed by the blaze. It is quite likely that if Notre Dame is ever rebuilt, it will both take years, cost a great deal and lack the historic milleau of its predecessor, built in the 12th century and completed a century later. A century to build, a day to destroy...

Officially, the fire is being referred to by the authorities as an 'accident occurring while renovation work was in progress. ' While this might be true, the complete destruction involved is against it. To think of this as an accident is to assume the following:

1.The timing (holy week) and the recent previous vandalizing of Churches throughout France in recent weeks at Saint-Sulpice and Saint Denis (and its priceless pipe organ) are just, you know, coincidences. ( Just in passing, the media isn't reporting much on this)

2. The Muslims in Paris are very  peaceful, law abiding and respect other religions.

3 The construction crew doing the repairs would never hire Muslims.

3) No Muslim or Muslims would risk their jobs to  take the opportunity to destroy one of Christianity's most famous buildings in Holy Week.

4 The construct crew was so incompetent that they set multiple fires in different parts of the area they were working on...whoopsie.

Let's just say Je suis très sceptique. *

On the other hand, we all know the timing and the previous vandalism of France's churches is suspicious, also that generally, speaking many Muslims in Paris are neither peaceful, law abiding or respectful of other people's religions in the least. And that it Muslim migrants frequently are involved in construction work, and that any construction company entrusted with working on a famous landmark and a major tourist attraction would be chosen by the City of Paris based on their track record of safety and successful completion of jobs like this.

The last I heard, the fire had spread to Ile de la Cité, a pleasant little  island in the Seine within the city of Paris. The population of about 1,000 people has been evacuated. The Seine isn't particularly wide there, so there's the unpleasant possibility of spreading further.

Eh Bien, what happens if the authorities find out it was Muslims who burned down Notre Dame?
My guess would be nothing. Much of France's media has already bought into surrender, and President Macron's victory in what was one of France's few crooked elections was definitely helped by a Muslim block vote, especially in Paris and Marseilles. So in my opinion, no matter what this will be kept quiet and marked down as an accident...tres triste, n'est pah?**

Even if it does go public, the media will caution against, you know, hate speech. After all, what's a few centuries of civilization? Even Pope Francis would likely call for calm and tolerance.
What Hitler and the Nazis couldn't do, France's invited 'guests' seem to have begun, and not just in Paris. The match has been lit. We'll see what happens.

Update: Twitter and other social media are filed with French Muslim Arabs cheering the fire at Notre Dame. just mentioning this in passing .


* I'm very skeptical.
**Very sad, isn't it?

 




Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.
And connect with him on Linked In.
 

Why Israel Voted For Life- The Real Story of Israel’s 2019 Elections

The Israeli 2019 elections are over, and in spite of all the nonsense in the garbage press, there’s only one major reason why it turned out as it did. In the end, Israel voted for life, plain and simple.

The results are as follows, but basically they can be understood as the collapse of the Israeli Left and a final verdict on the Left’s worst mistake… Oslo and the fallacy of the so called ‘two state solution.’

Bibi Netanyahu has won a record breaking fifth term as Israel’s prime minister. And the new government he will form will likely be further to the right, more nationalistic and much more stable then the current one with at least 65 seats or more. They may even get more because Israeli law specifies that those parties who fail to make the vote threshold (3.5%) must distribute their votes to another party.

The Blue and White Party, with former Labour General Benny Ganz and his co-chairman former TV Talking head Yair Lapid were supposed to win and oust Netanyahu. A lot of the Israeli press was touting them, since basically, the Blue and White party consisted of politicians who favored Oslo and the two state ‘land for peace’ solution. Ganz has always been noted for his hostility to Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria and Lapid’s sole claim to fame aside from his TV antics was that he was once finance minister as part of the usual Israeli political horse trading. I remember asking one of my Israeli friends in Lapid knew anything about finance.His response? “Well, I think maybe he knows how to use an ATM.’ Actually a pretty accurate answer as it turned out. In the end, they got 34 seats, almost all of them based on votes from Tel Aviv, which is almost akin to New York in terms of its politics. I doubt the Blue and White will be around for the next election. The entire Left coalition got perhaps 50 seats or so, including the Arab parties.

 
Israel’s Leftist Labour Party, which ruled the country for decades is essentially out of the picture. They won all of six seats in the new 120 member Knesset. The EU funded ultra Left Meretz Party had a grand total of four seats.

All the polls of the 2019 Israeli Elections had Blue and White leading Israel’s Left to victory.The press even trumpeted Israel’s attorney general’s last minute ‘indictments’ of Netanyahu for corruption, things that in most other countries would not even be questionable. Like our own president, Netanyahu has a lot of haters on the Left. Among his other sins, it was MIT grad Netanyahu who as finance minister rebuilt Israel’s economy by privatizing a number of things the government shouldn’t have been owning and encouraging entrepreneurship, pushing joint government and private industry projects, and generally turning Israel from a quasi-Socialist state with a struggling economy into the economic powerhouse it is today. The Left has never forgiven him.

So why did he win?

To understand that, you have to review both the past and the recent present.


The mantra of the Israeli Left was always 'land for peace.' The idea with Oslo was that this would work out like the deal with Egypt. There would be peace, and Israel's diplomatic status and image with foreign countries and the UN would be improved. Actually, that deal never really worked that way. Only since Egypt's Al Sissi took over has there been real co-operation between the two governments, based on a mutual distaste for Islamist terrorism.

The Camp David Accord was different because Anwar Sadat really wanted peace. Yasser Arafat was a Soviet trained terrorist who had no intention of it. It was President Bill Clinton who really created Oslo and gifted Arafat with his own kleptocrat fiefdom. Mr.Bill loved Yasser. He had him to the White house more than any other foreign dignitary, even though he knew Yasser Arafat had ordered two US diplomats tortured to death in the Sudan. And after Mr. Bill intervened in the Israeli elections to get Labour's Yitzhak Rabin elected, the time was right. Arafat, huddled away in Tunis with his small group of thugs was given territory to have as an autonomous region (not a sovereign state) in exchange for renouncing terrorism, avoiding incitement to violence and embracing peaceful co-existence.

Needless to say, he did nothing of the kind. The ensuing bloodbath and suicide bombings mounted up as the most appalling atrocities were committed while Rabin and the Labour Party talked about sacrifices for peace. And Israel's seeking peace resulted in even worse foreign relations with the EU and UN, demanding more and more concessions of Israel and only Israel.

The same thing happened after Gaza. The UN, President George W. Bush and his Roadmap and the EU all promised Gaza would strengthen Arafat as a gesture for peace, and that Gaza would never be allowed to become a security problem for Israel. None of those guarantees were worth the paper they were written on either.

Most Israelis realize now that the entire 'Oslo/Land for peace/ Two state solution'  nonsense is and always was a total fallacy. you can't allow a den of rattlesnakes or a pack of rabid dogs to live in your backyard and expect to have peace. It doesn't work that way. And tthat's really what Israel's 2019 elections were about.

Netanyahu announcing that he's going to annex the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and that he is committed to make them part of Israel is a major change. Among other things, it means those communities will be under Israeli law rather than military law. It gives them permanency.
Likewise, Netanyahu finally coming up with the courage to say there will be no 'Palestinian State' is also a major step. There's no reason for one and never has been, especially since Jordan gave these Arabs citizenship back in 1954 and most of these 'Palestinians'   still have it, including Mahmud Abbas. 'Palestine' has received more aid money than any other developing nation in history. What is there to show for it except some fat bank accounts in the EU and the Emirates? Nothing except a terrorist squat with murder for hire as its chief export.

The  Israeli 2019 elections were the  electorate finally saying 'Ani lo friar'*  once and for all. Recent terrorist attacks, including the brutal murder and rape of a nineteen-year- old girl and the murder of a Rabbi with ten children definitely help solidify this sentiment.

Another reason for Netanyahu's win is his diplomatic successes.  His relationships with the UN and some of the nations in the  the EU are a problem , but the relations to the UN and these particular EU Nations with any Israeli leader would be the same. They have their far Left and a lot of Muslim migrants to appease.

But Israel under Netanyahu has fostered very close relationships with Russia's Putin, India's Modi,  Brazil's Bolsanaro, numerous African nations, Australia's Scott Morrison, Egypt's Al Sissi and other Arab nations and of course, our own President Trump, Vice President Pence and the Republicans in congress. Ganz had zero foreign policy experience, and neither did Lapid.

And of course, Israel's economy remains robust.

So how will this affect America? In several ways.

First, it will definitely affect President Trump's deal of the century peace plan if it even gets aired. Since I doubt Netanyahu wouldn't have told President Trump what he had in mind beforehand, and the president has already confirmed that his plan does not require a 'Palestinian' state.That makes president Trump smarter than any President since Reagan, who said exactly the same thing about the necessity of such a thing.

I doubt this doesn't change a few things. But since Mahmoud Abbas has already said no to anything Trump comes up with, it's probably a dead issue.

Second, the recent anti-semitism coming from almost every Democrat running for president in 2020 and those of anti-semitic Democrat members of congress is going to be one more issue to divide things. Thanks mostly to Barack Hussein Obama, this stuff is now out in the open as the Democrat Party follows the trend set by the UK's Labour Party. The only Democrat presidential hopeful to go to AIPAC's convention was Cory Booker, who actually has a Jewish constituency in New Jersey. The rest boycotted it.  I expect this to continue as Israel haters  like Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg among others fight for the nomination. Buttigieg in  particular is the craftiest of the three, masking his contempt for Israel by attacking Netanyahu and thus claiming that attacking Israel's democratic choice 'isn't anti-semitism'  and pushing for that same old two state nonsense. I wonder if Buttigieg knows hoow gays are treated in 'Palestine?'

Beto actually called Netanyahu a racist.  BTW, anyone who thinks Mayor Buttigieg is the sort of person you want running America should check what he's done to South Bend, Indiana as mayor. The media's hushing this up, but I have a feeling it's going to come out as things heat up.

American Jews are going to become more divided...until they wake up. For many Jews in the past, especially those closest in age to the Holocaust, Israel was a major issue. It isn't anymore for a significant number of today's Jews, for various reasons.

There are a number of things responsible for the change.  As Israel went from a socialist, left leaning country to a more capitalist, nationalist state with a strong military most Israelis not only took pride in but served in it, many Jews who already leaned hard to the Left became estranged.

A large part of this increasing trend was the coverage Israel received from the media here in America. The New York Times and the alphabet networks were especially dishonest and repugnant, as was the BBC in Britain. Aside from demonizing Israel, they also sold the 'Palestinian' cause to these young Jews with the preconceived script of the Arab David versus the Israeli Goliath...carefully avoiding the vicious attacks on 'Goliath.' They also popularized the myth of Israel as 'occupier' and an 'apartheid state' committing 'war crimes.' This was the strategy of the Big Lie on steroids.

On universities where the Left had control (that is, most of them) Jewish students were made to feel uncomfortable by both radical professors and anti-Israel student groups. A great number of Mid East studies Departments were essentially bought by the Saudis for the express purpose of giving an academic luster to the 'anti-zionist ' agenda. This propaganda was especially well received by a number of black and other minority students, adding pressure to Jews to virtue signal by damning Israel and become part of the in crowd.

Finally, the nomination of Barack Hussein Obama served as a test for those 'good Jews' to virtue signal and vote for the first black president, even to the point of ignoring his many anti-semitic and anti-Israel mentors. His establishing J Street with the financial backing of anti-Israel billionaire George Soros gave many of these Jews a banner to march under to pretend they were pro-peace no matter how many of their fellow Jews the 'Palestinians' brutally murdered. These Jews simply made a choice - Obama over Israel. Not even Obama's appeasement of the genocidal Iranian regime made any difference. Many of them have made the same choice today...the resistance and the newly anti-Israel Democrat Party over pro-Israel President Trump. Will they continue to make that ultimately self hating and suicidal error? Time will tell. In the UK, it took awhile before Britain's Jews awoke to what Labour had become  and by then it was pretty much too late.

Interestingly enough, as a number of young American Jews go left, associate themselves with the increasingly anti-Israel Democrat Party  and distance themselves from Israel and religious observance, their contemporaries in Israel are doing exactly the reverse, getting closer to religion and moving right politically.

There's a reason for that.

While these young Israelis were too young to experience the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995, these younger Israelis lots of them religiously observant to some degree, grew up with the consequences. They grew up with the so-called Second Intifada, which began in September 2000. they saw their friends and contemporaries murdered by Israel's 'peace partners and saw the government doing little about it. They went to the funerals of their friends murdered by homicide bombers and in many case experienced them firsthand, even though they survived.

Trust me, when you experience something like that and what it looks like, sounds like and smells like, it changes your entire perspective about 'land for peace' and 'the two state solution.' When you see parents sobbing over their dead children, when you see grown men in tears picking up their dead bodies while  you can actually hear the 'Palestinians' celebrating this in the distance all the rhetoric you've been fed by left wing politicians, the media and what's known as the international community is revealed as the horse manure it really is. You never forget. Never.

The Israeli Left is essentially history now.  The most Netanyahu's new government is going to allow is a small enclave in Area A where the majority of Arabs live, a place where they lack statehood but can run their lives domestically. and frankly, I wouldn't even give them that much. A 'Palestinian' enclave would simply be a cancer in an otherwise healthy area. Most of these people are Jordanian citizens, including Mahmoud Abbas. There's no reason they shouldn't return there, where they can mouth their hatred of Jews to their heart's content without hurting anyone but themselves.

Israel has finally gotten out of it's defensive crouch. There won't be any more cringing over the latest nonsense from the UN or questioning over the ownership of the land from the river to the sea, land not only promised to the Jews by the Almighty but by the League of Nations Palestine mandate, its reaffirmation by Article 80 of the UN Charter and the San Remo accords that even the Arabs agreed to. It's time to end this.

Selah.

*'I'm no sucker'







Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.
Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

The  2020 Census citizenship question is one of the  battles taking place in congress right now that isn't being publicized.

Simply put, the Trump Administration wants a citizenship question on the 2020 census, something the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail.

If anyone needed proof that voter fraud exists and that illegal migrants are voting in Democrat ruled fiefdoms like California and a number of cities, there it is. There's no other reason to oppose census workers asking that question. What we're seeing here is nothing less than the flagrant use of non-citizens, including illegal migrants to increase the political power of the Democrat party so that it can decrease the choices, freedom and political power of other Americans.

What's even more comical is that the proposed law itself is useless as it stands. Let's say you're an illegal migrant and the census worker comes to your door. Maybe you just jumped the border awhile ago. Or maybe you were a beneficiary of catch and release who conveniently forgot about that court date and are now in another state. Maybe you're getting social welfare benefits in addition to your off the books job in a restaurant as a busboy.

When you get asked if you're a citizen, what would you say? Would you jeopardize the nice deal you have going?

Of course, you'd say yes, or refuse to answer the question. After all, when you registered that car you bought, you left that box at the DMV unchecked and now you're getting campaign adds and sample ballots.* So why not say yes? Or refuse to answer?

So we've established that both sides of this Census Citizenship question for 2020 is ridiculous. Is there something that would work far better to tell citizens from non-citizens?
Sure there is, although it would be a real hell raiser.

First, require the courts to release the names of all catch and release beneficiaries who either skipped out on their court hearings or have hearings scheduled on the court's calendar. When these names are cross referenced with things like DMV records, the census workers would thus save time knowing where not to ask the Census Citizenship question and ICE would know where to find people who skipped out on their court hearings.

The State Department could likewise required to release the names and IDs of all Visa overstayers.
Second, an old idea of mine. Require all illegal migrants to register with ICE within 60 days. Those who registered would have a pending status and would be considered for residence permits, depending on their conduct here in America. Those who did not would be deported with no right of appeal. Compare those names with the voter registration lists and you go a long way towards solving two problems, illegal migration and voter fraud.

*The official policy of the California DMV is that if an applicant for a license or someone registering a vehicle fills out everything but leaves the box asking if they are a citizen unchecked, it is considered a 'mistake' or 'omission' and they are automatically registered to vote unless they specifically ask not to be.






Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.
And connect with him on Linked In.

Holocaust Memorial Day Is Meaningless

 

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. And much as I hate to say it, it's meaningless. Almost to the point of farce. Because it has no meaning. Let's look at few of today's cartoons.

Let's look at Germany's Angela Merkel first. She made the usual poignant speech about how it is so horrible that Jews are being attacked in Germany. Regarding Germany's role in commemorating the Holocaust, Merkel said that "Nazism and the Holocaust that followed are part of our history, and therefore we are committed to preserving its memory in order to prevent the recurrence of such terrible things in the future.

My, my.

Prior to 2015,Germany was one of the safest countries in Europe for Jews. Germany was one of the only countries in Europe to face up honestly to the hideous atrocities that had been committed while the majority of Germans were happy to look the other way. And honestly facing that and admitting it took an incredible amount of forthrightness and courage, courage many European countries who took part in the carnage and the wholesale theft of Jewish property lacked... and still lack.

But now, it's one of the least safe countries for Jews to live in. Goodness, Mutti Merkel, what changed? Could it be your bringing in thousands of Muslim 'migrants' into Germany who imbibed Jew hatred with their mother's milk and their first Qur'an lessons? And what exactly are you doing to stop it, aside from issuing reports every now and then? For all the nonsense from former examples of honest journalism like Der Spiegel about how this is all coming from the 'radical right,' any honest German knows where almost all of it comes from. And trust me, although she'll never admit it publicly, so does Angela Merkel.

And if, as she said, nothing like the Holocaust should ever happen again, riddle me this...why are she and other EU leaders supporting Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, considering Iran's openly stated goal of genocide for Israel's Jews?

And it's not just Germany. It's the same story in France. Lots of declarations, but no going after the real cause of the Jew hatred and hate crimes, not when Emanuel Macron's victory was heavily dependent on the Muslim vote. Not too long ago, France had a population of over 600,000 Jews. Now, it's around 450,000 and dropping, especially since Muslims are driving the Jews out of their traditional neighborhood in North Paris. Does anyone really care about whatever faux sympathetic nonsense Macron says at this point?

Here's another laugher. Poland's Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said this today, on the anniversary that marked 74 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.:

"Hitler's Germany fed on fascist ideology... But all the evil came from this (German) state and we cannot forget that, because otherwise we relativise evil," said Morawiecki at an official ceremony at Auschwitz.

"The Polish state acts as the guardian of the truth, which must not be relativised in any way," he said.

What's behind this was former President Obama's idiotic remark about 'Polish concentration camps.'

The Poles were legitimately insulted, and passed a law making it illegal to accuse the Polish nation or state of complicity in Nazi German crimes. But evil?

It was two courageous Polish officers who escaped Poland to bring evidence of the Holocaust to people like FDR, who ignored it. And if you go to Israel and visit the Holocaust memorial of Yad Vashem, you will see the name of plenty of Polish Catholics who risked their lives to save Poland's Jews. But it's not the whole story, unfortunately.

Prime Minister Moraweicki conveniently forgets that when the Germans invaded, there were Catholic clergy who actually told their congregations that the Germans had only come to Poland because of the Jews and that when the Jews were 'dealt with' they would leave.


Prime Minister Moraweicki conveniently forgot that Catholic Poland in 1939 was a deeply anti-semitic country. He forgot that the defenders of the Warsaw Ghetto desperately asked the Polish resistance for help and were refused. And he forgets that the last Jews murdered in the Holocaust were murdered not by Nazis, but by Poles in a place called Keilce. You see, after surviving the death camps, they actually had the nerve to try to reclaim their old homes from the Poles who moved in. And nothing was ever really done about it.

I have nothing against Poles or Poland whatsoever, rather the reverse in fact. But to put it all on the Germans like PM Morwiecki does?

This is just another example of how meaningless Holocaust Memorial Day is. Because the thinking behind the Holocaust never changes.

This week, at the UN, of all places there was a report on Jewish owned art stolen in the Holocaust that urged museums and private owners who 'acquired' the paintings some how to return them to their rightful owners or their descendants. This was in response to the Netherlands and other countries passing laws allowing the new 'owners' to keep the stolen paintings. The Netherlands literally has a commission that decides whether to return the stolen art based on on how valuable it is. The expensive stuff, they just keep. It's to be expected in a country where, like Belgium, Jews are advised not to wear yarmulkes or anything else that might suggest that they're Jewish.

And in the UK of course, one of the major parties, Labour is openly anti-semitic, something they mask as 'anti-Zionism.' A recent poll says that 5% of the British people, 2.6 million say that the Holocaust is a myth. And another 8% says that the death toll is 'exaggerated.' Most of the UK's public schools no longer teach anything about the Holocaust because it would not jibe with what their many Muslim students 'are being taught at home.' Maybe that's why so many of its citizens think it never happened.

Even the United States has become prey to this kind of thinking. Did anyone say much about almost every Democrat presidential hopeful nuzzling up to the openly anti-semitic Al Sharpton? Or the Jew hating rhetoric of a number of new Democrat congress members? What would happen to a white congress member calling blacks 'termites' which is how Rep. Hank Johnson referred to Jews, just like Louis Farakhan?

Here's a good example of how this kind of thinking works, courtesy of one Robin Abacarian, who writes for the LA Times. She is basically defending the anti-Trump Women's March from the open anti-semitism of some of the participants like Linda Sarsour and their embrace of Louis Farrakhan.

Her basic point is that even if Louis Farrakhan is a racist and anti-Semite, "I think it is possible to be repulsed by his hateful rhetoric about white people, especially Jews, and still appreciate some of the empowerment work that he has done in the black community, including leading the 1995 Million Man March to promote African American family unity."

I laughed out loud at that one. I still have a video of the entire million man march, recorded as it happened from C-SPAN. While the alphabet networks carefully showed edited clips to America and the print media concentrated on how 'powerful' it was, the Million Man March was actually one of the worst public exhibitions of Jew hatred in America since Father Coughlin and the Silver Shirts back in the 1930's. And black family unity? 75% of black births still happen out of wedlock, and most of the little 'customers' Planned Parenthood kills just happen to be black. *

But let's see how this same kind of thinking can be applied in another direction. Based on her last name, Ms. Abacarian is likely either Armenian or married to an Armenian. Would she write something like this?

"Hey, I don't agree with the Turkish language about Greeks and Armenians, and I just deplore the massacring of 1.5 million Armenians, but you still have to admire how the Turks who led the massacre made a modern country out of Turkey and empowered Turks."

Or perhaps this. I could just see her writing for the German press in 1936, couldn't you? "Look, I find a lot of Hitler's hateful rhetoric repulsive, but you have to admire how he solved Germany's unemployment problem, put on the Olympics and really empowered Germany and German families, right?"

That kind of thinking is exactly why Holocaust Memorial Day is meaningless. The thinking behind it (and the way Jews are thought of in far too many places) hasn't changed one bit.

A Few Words On Covington

 

I think it's worth spending a few words on Covington, since the real root of the matter seems to be overlooked by a lot of people who I think ought to know better.

Originally, this was labeled by the Left, their trained seals in the media and yes, a lot of faux 'conservative' cucks as a hideous example of Trump inspired racism, with MAGA hats being the symbol of the new Nazi brown shirts.

Basically,what happened was this. Teenage students at the Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky decided to peacefully demonstrate in solidarity with the March For Life near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. They were approached by one Nathan Phillips, described by the media later as an 'Indian tribe elder' and a 'Vietnam War veteran.'

The media's story, led by the habitually fake news Buzzfeed, was that the kids went up to him, mocked him and insulted him racially. And Buzzfeed, the NRO and the rest of the media jackals were quick to pick up on a heavily doctored and edited video that supposedly showed this.

Of course, the real story was revealed later.  Longer versions of the same video showed that it was the activist, and a nearby group of black supremacist activists, who harassed the students while they were waiting for their bus. The black group even hurled racial abuse at the students. You'll notice, of course that  the racist vile black supremacist group was left out of this story. The student's response was to sing school songs to try to drown out the obscenities and remain calm.

The student shown smiling at a professional 'activist' who got in his face and started beating a drum while chanting some Indian gibberish was admirable  in its restraint as far as I'm concerned

Even the so called creds of this Nathan Phillips turned out to be sheer BS.  It turns out that this guy is simply a professional agitator who makes seems to have quite a history of confronting white students and then claiming he was assaulted by these racists. He's pulled this several times, and no real evidence to back up his stories has ever been found. In fact, he's something of a Catholic basher. Phillips led a rally that attempted to disrupt Mass at DC’s National Shrine on January 19th, just a few days before this happened.

He's no 'Vietnam War Veteran' either. After one reporter at the WAPO shrieked in print ad nauseum about how these MAGA Nazi teenagers disrespected a war veteran, the WAPO had to fix it by admitting it was a blatant lie:

 "Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam."

He also isn't a tribal Elder as far as I can find out.


But of course, all this was too good to let a little thing like this get in the way. The media creeps piled on, to the point that the kids lives were actually threatened. The Twitter people, who have lied over and over again about their political bias and still mock us by claiming that they are taking great steps to eliminate violence, threats and things like harassment, and what they call 'misinformation.'

Get a load of what ran on Twitter and is still up:

LOCK THE KIDS IN THE SCHOOL AND BURN THAT BITCH TO THE GROUND.

— Uncle Shoes (@HouseShoes) January 19, 2019

But you gotta punch that shit off one of those bitches faces first.

Uncle Shoes ✔ @HouseShoes

Free @STREETCORNERSCM catalog for a red hat.

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8:12 PM - Jan 20, 2019

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127 people are talking about this

Giving a shit-eating grin to a Native American's face isn't legally violence. But he is smiling *about* the violence. He is saying, "my people hurt you, and you can't touch me even while I gloat about it." It is fascism. And you should punch fascists.

— Jeffrey Grubb (@JeffGrubb) January 19, 2019

 

@AaronSmarter

Punch the little mfs in the face
Pain is an excellent teacher

  Reza Aslan

Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?

I know he’s like a teen or whatever but I still wanna hit him. Like super hard. Right in that bish ass lookin face. Ya know? https://t.co/sOMjeYVQPy

— TATIANNA (@TATIANNANOW) January 20, 2019

Kathy Griffin ✔ @kathygriffin

Ps. The reply from the school was pathetic and impotent. Name these kids. I want NAMES. Shame them. If you think these fuckers wouldn’t dox you in a heartbeat, think again.

Paul Stothard @paul_stothard

 · Jan 19, 2019

Replying to @4154Life @williamlegate

Is today the day that Twitter hunts down and vilifies school kids? If so, I’m out.

William LeGate ✔ @williamlegate

It is that day. Sorry, you will have to go & defend these kids now. I did shit way less dumb than these kids when I was 16 & got obliterated for it. They deserve everything they’re getting & more

372

10:53 PM - Jan 19, 2019

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Breitbart Jacked It To Eva Braun Scat Porn Li'l ✔ @karengeier

 · Jan 20, 2019

“Let Nazi teens have their privacy” is just the most white supremacist, ahistorical horseshit. Like, there was literally an organization called the Hitler Youth and it served a very deliberate purpose. Fuck off and read a book

Breitbart Jacked It To Eva Braun Scat Porn Li'l ✔ @karengeier

Maybe doxing racist teens is a powerful deterrent against being a racist teen. We all know how much fash love discipline and consequences

67 people are talking about this

 

If I were in a room with the MAGA Kid, Hitler, and Toby and had three bullets, I’d shoot the MAGA Kid three times

— Chad Chamberlain (@ChadChum15) January 20, 2019

I hope all these MAGA kids in the news get cancer and the horrible parents that raised them this way get to suffer alongside them- 🏴 Jez 🌻 Watson🌹 (@jezawatson) January 20, 2019

******************************************************

There's lots more, but the above is stomach turning enough.

So here are a few things to take away from all this.

1) Commentators on the right have been vilified, lost jobs and been pushed off the net for far milder things than this and will continue to be. So this is a war with no rules. Women,families and children are not off limits. There are no standards anymore. The Left hates us, and wants us dead or in the gulags.

2) To the Left, any racist hatred against whites, Jews, Christians,  women, children, Hispanics, Asians or blacks who fail to bow to the new order is legitimate, and any violence and retaliation directed at them  is going to be excused. 

3) A puppy will keep peeing on the floor  if he is sees that there are no consequences for doing so. What we have here is exactly that...puppies  who have learned they can pee on the floor with impunity and even bite people because there's no downside for them, no cost to them whatsoever. If the Left's behavior is going to change, they are going to need real punishment for this sort of thing until they realize that their violence, defamation and and attacks are going to merit similar treatment.

And yes, it has come to that, I'm afraid.

4) These children have been unjustly scarred for life. Their identities have become known, and they will never know if they weren't refused college admission, scholarships, promotions, or a job simply because someone Googled their name and rejected them simply because the people making the decisions were on the Left or afraid to antagonize the Left.

And that was part of the reason this hideous assault on the Covington kids was planned and publicized as it was. It was to give them and everyone else a message. Oppose the Left in any way and you and your loved ones will be ruined for life. Brett Kavanaugh still needs to have private security on his home and his two daughters still need bodyguards in school, simply because some Hillary loving left Wing activist was wiling to lie under oath about a 'sexual assault' that never happened.

This, by the way, is what the Klan used to do to blacks who had the temerity  to register to vote. They'd make life hell for them or even lynch them, which is exactly what the Left did here, using the media instead of a rope. With Democrats, some things never change, I suppose.

Because of our antiquated libel and slander laws, Kavanaugh was unable to sue the pants off this foul woman because he is a public person. But the Covington kids were neither public people or attempting to be public people. Their reaction to this should be to sue every company that collaborated in this attack on them and made them a target. For that matter, so should the Covington Catholic High School, which has been forced to remain closed for safety reasons.

Among other things, this was a violationof their First Amendment rights.  Twitter, Buzzfeed and the National Review should be the first on the list to have their bank accounts drained, followed by the talking heads and celebrities who threatened these kids with violence. I can think of other things that could be done, but I'll leave that to my reader's imagination. Let the Left and their cuck allies see the price for this kind of attack on kids who neither merited it or deserved it.

5)Finally, the worst enemies we have now are not the Left, but the faux so-called 'conservatives.' Cucks like Bill Kristol,  Hugh Hewitt (boy do I hate writing his name here, but so be it), Jen Ruben, Max Boot, the cucks at places like the NRO and the whole disgusting pile of never Trumpers. They all jumped on this likes flies on a fresh dog turd. You think they would at least have said 'let's wait a bit and see, this seems a bit manufactured. It's Buzzfeed, you know, and after all...'

In reality, they very much wanted this to be true. That's why they were so anxious to start virtue signaling and showing their friends on the Left  that they hate what the Left hates....It's their way of saying, ' I want you to really like me. Please keep hiring me to do spots on your networks, write for your newspapers, publish my books and keep inviting me to your parties, OK?'

And of course they lied blatantly (again) once the con was discovered to be just that. Like they didn't know Buzzfeed is not to be trusted? Like didn't know the Left pulls this stuff all the time? Please, spare me. 

They're rather like the Left wing Jews willing to swallow the Jew hatred and anti-Israel rants of their fellow Democrats just to wallow in the illusion that these people actually like them. And they are willing to ignore all the hard evidence they see that they're really not liked at all except for the checks these Jews write and the verbal support and votes they are suicidally willing to cast.

The left, frankly, is quite open about its hatred of us. That's a given, and they prove it every day. The danger of the people I'm talking about here is that even though they betrays us at every turn, they pretend to be our friend and allies. Who needs a bunch of quislings cucks and traitors as allies?

What happened to the Covington kids needs to be a wake up call to all of us. And it deserves a substantial response. The rules of the game the way the Left and their allies play it changed a long time ago. It's time we realized it and responded in kind.

The Fraud Behind The L.A. Teacher's Strike

 

The L.A. teacher’s strike involves over 30,000 unionized  Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers and other school employees have gone out on strike to demand higher pay and ‘smaller class sizes.’ The truth of the matter? The entire strike is an outrageous fraud.
What the teachers and administrators want is a clear indication that this is a lot more than a labor dispute.

The unions want what they call fully staffed schools, meaning more teachers, librarians, nurses, admin staff, and counselors, with limits on class sizes. And of course, a 6.6% raise with back pay for
the 2017-18 school year.

Let's examine this in detail, shall we?

For working 8 months per year, the average pay of LAUSD teachers is -wait for it-$75,504, based on last year's numbers. And that's a median figure, which includes brand new teachers with no experience. Teachers with a few years experience can earn a lot more, and that includes a generous benefits package most workers could only dream of.Principles and administrators earn a lot more:




Even for pricey Los Angeles, these are very good salaries, especially when you add the value of their benefits package and the fact that there's nothing stopping these teachers from taking temporary employment while school's out. Teachers on the low end also have the opportunity to make more money teaching summer school or doing after school tutoring and coaching once their six hour day is over.

But what are the parents of California's public school students getting for all this money?

California spends $9,417 per pupil, with the LAUSD spending $10,000 to educate each student, with additional funding for low-income students, English-learners and foster youth.

That puts the state at number 35 in the nation, but that number includes how much is spent for salaries for teachers, administrators and their oversized benefits. Only 29.2% of fourth graders in the state are proficient in math, and only 27.8% are proficient in reading — each the third lowest share of any state. The 8th grade NAEP proficiency: 27.1% (math) 28.4% (reading).

 In LA Unified, 39.55 percent of students tested proficient in English language arts, a slight increase from 39 percent the year before (LA Unified officials are rounding the increase to 1 percent). In math, 29.86 percent of students were proficient, an increase from 28 percent the year before (which LA Unified has rounded to a 2 percent increase).

Gotta round those figures up, right?

80 per cent graduate from LAUSD's high schools according to their figures, but with those low proficiency numbers, we have to know that social promotion has to account for a decent percentage of those graduates.

And these dismal results are what the teacher's unions want a huge raise for producing!

But wait a minute. What about those overcrowded classrooms? Doesn't that effect things?

Here are a few factoids to play with.

The Education Trust-West, a non-partisan think tank estimates roughly 250,000 undocumented children between the ages of 3 and 17 are enrolled in California schools, with the highest concentration in Los Angeles County. The group estimates 750,000 K-12 students in California have undocumented parents.

Among other reasons, these parents come to California and Los Angeles schools because it's a both a sanctuary state and city, and because of policies that shield them from ICE. And then there's the  vast resources and support provided by the district... and the teachers union.

UTLA has an “Immigrant Rights for Educators Workshop,” for example, to arm union employees with legal information, resources, and “a network of concerned community members and educators who stand up for immigrant students and families.” The union’s Social Justice & Action Resources also shows union members how to “Shield Against Immigrant Detention and Deportation.” And of course, how to vote.

Union members have actively participated in several rallies calling for “Freedom for Immigrants!” and declaring illegal immigrants are “Here to Stay.”

So much for the Union wanting those uncrowded classrooms. In fact, they're actually encouraging classrooms to become even more crowded.

And here's another interesting factoid. LAUSD district enrollment numbers show that the overall number of students uin public schools has actually been declining.

Student enrollment in LAUSD schools has dropped to about 600,000 students this year, and it's obvious why. As the failure of many of the LAUSD's unionized public schools become more and more evident, parents are either going to charter schools, which are mostly non-unionized and have far better stats, or to parochial or private schools which have even better stats.

I can testify to this one myself. I yanked my own kids out of the LAUSD school system as soon as feasible and sent them to a private Jewish day school. Aside from the moral armor and self discipline this provided them with, the school was a totally secure environment with no gangs or problems with theft or acting out. Both religious and secular education were provided by dedicated teachers (non-union) and my children received a first class superior education for a fraction of what the LAUSD spends per pupil. When my kids moved on to high school, they were easily two to three years ahead of what their friends in public schools were studying. I'm certain parents in private schools or parochial schools had similar results.

And an increasing number of parents are opting for homeschooling (which California tried and failed to make illegal) or to independent charter schools, which are typically not unionized. Since 2002-03, the number of students attending charter schools increased from less than 50,000 to well over 100,000 for 2018-19, according to the superintendent of school’s final budget.

So in a very real sense, for the teacher's union keeping illegal immigrants in LA schools and encouraging even more to come is important when it comes to keeping dues paying  UTLA members employed, since the overall number of students in LAUSD schools has declined to 600,000 this year, As it has declined every year since 2002-03, when it peaked at 746,831 students.

Those 'crowded classrooms' these self serving teacher's union parasites scream about would be a lot less crowded with less illegal migrants, now wouldn't they? But of course that's not at all what the teachers Union really wants.

In spite of all this, there's no doubt in my mind the teacher's union will eventually get what it wants.

Yesterday, I had business in downtown Los Angeles to attend to. Normally that's not that much of a problem provided you find parking. As it happened it was a rainy day, which always greatly increases the traffic problem. Yet this was the same day the Democrat run city of Los Angeles acceded to the union's demand and closed off whole sections of downtown and blocked off major streets so the union could march with their signs. It caused a major mess beyond even what I've experienced in New York City. Cars were sitting there without even moving more than a foot at a time if they were fortunate. I actually had to cancel my appointment because the area I was headed for and where parking had been reserved for me was simply inaccessible. And I'm sure I wasn't alone.

The media, of course, didn't report much on this, or on the political slant of this march with anti-Trump signs, pussy hats, and pro amnesty signs.

The reason the city of Los Angeles allowed this is simple. Like most public employee unions, the teacher's union contributes money and manpower exclusively to the Democrats at campaign time.

The teacher's union has already rejected an offer by the Los Angeles Unified School District to add nearly 1,200 more educators, counselors, nurses and librarians, with hard limits on class sizes. The district also bumped up its previous offer by $24 million, with a proposed 6 percent raise and back pay for the 2017-18 school year...almost exactly what union wanted, but UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl described LAUSD’s offer as “woefully inadequate.”

A lot of the union's signs had the slogan, 'We're striking for our students.'

 

Now you know what the L.A. Teacher's strike is really all about. And that who they're really striking for isn't the students.

The EU Is At War With Israel

 

It's official. For all intents and purposes, the EU is at war with Israel.Some of the members, particularly in Eastern and central Europe aren't participating, but most of the EU is.

It isn't a shooting war, but an increasing effort to marginalize the Jewish State so it can be destroyed..

The EU supports anti-Israel NGOs financially,and continues to fund the PLO even though it uses much of those funds to pay terrorists for murdering Israeli civilians, even though that financial support frees up funds to be used in what the PLO refers to as 'operations.'

Only Israel has fruits, vegetables and fresh flowers specially labeled as being from 'the Occupied West Bank.'

Led by Angela Merkel and Frances Emanuel Macron, the EU has consistently evaded U.S. sanctions against Iran and continued to observe the farcical Iran 'deal' of Barack Hussein Obama. The EU has done this even though Iran has been quite clear of its genocidal intentions towards Israel.

And it was none other than Germany's Angela Merkel who pressured Eastern and Central European countries with good relationships with Israel not to relocate their embassies in Jerusalem or face her wrath.

The founding director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels, Tomas Sandell, reported that  that the  German Chancellor  waged a strenuous campaign to stop central and eastern European countries from moving their capitals to Jerusalem..

 “I have spoken to many Germans these last few days in Brussels,” he said. “They are not aware of this, and all of them would be shocked that all of the countries in the European Union today would want to block an embassy move to Jerusalem, not only for your own country, but for other countries that have the conviction [that] this is the right thing to do, the only country to do would be Germany. This is a big shock.”

According to Sandell, most of  Merkel’s calls to put the squeeze on European leaders happened when “many of the nations were seriously considering moving their embassies.”

This isn't a shock to me at all,but let's continue.

Germany also implemented  the marking of Israeli goods from 'disputed territories' in 2015. Not only did Germany start the labeling, but Merkel used her influence to get other Eu nations to do the same.The idea, of course is to further isolate Israel as an 'occupying power.'

As recently as a few days ago, the EU showed that it had chosen sides against Israel. When American U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley tried to discuss aspects of President Trump's proposed peace plan, they essentially brushed it off. Let's look at their official statement and then dissect what it really means.

After the usual horse manure about a 'just peace 'based on international law, relevant UN resolutions and previous agreements', here's what they said:

  "The EU is truly convinced that the achievement of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital of both States, that meets Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation and resolves all final status issues, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2334 and previous agreements, is the only viable and realistic way to end the conflict and to achieve just and lasting peace."

Let's translate this, shall we?

 

Resolution 2334 is the one former President Barack Hussein Obama engineered when the Security Council had a majority of anti-Israel countries on it and then made sure the US abstained so it would pass, his final hateful attack on Israel. Here's what it stipulated, and it's an  'anti-zionist' wet dream.

First of all, it negates every Israeli community as illegal outside the pre-1967 lines and gives East Jerusalem to the PLO. This creates 580,000 homeless Israeli refugees, bars them forever from all their holy sites, and puts all of Israel's central plain and its airports in easy missile and mortar by giving Israel's sworn enemies the high ground.

 

Not only that, it also  takes away any notion of security from what's left of Jerusalem that the resolution is willing to leave to Israel. The Israelis themselves had previous experience with this in 1967, when Jordan's King Hussein announced his entry into the war by shelling civilians and having snipers fire on West Jerusalem

Even worse, there would be nothing to stop Iran from supplying deadlier and deadlier missiles and arms to both the PLO and Hamas. With the Jordan Valley out of Israeli control, there would be nothing to stop Iran from moving troops, missile launchers and armor  to Israel's new borders.

Essentially, what the EU was saying to Ambassador Haley is that they weren't going to support President Trump's plan whatever it was, that Israel should be moved to indefensible borders, and that its enemies should have every strategic advantage so they can finally destroy it.

2334 also  violates the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, agreements the U.S. was a signatory to that stated unequivocally that any settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could only be achieved through direct negations between the two parties.

And then of course, there's that notion of 'occupation.' That term has always been used to describe one country forcibly invading and taking control of another country's sovereign territory. And sovereign territory means land inside another established country's recognized borders, like Saddam Hussein occupying Kuwait or the US occupying Germany or Japan.

So we have to ask the question...which country's sovereign territory is Israel 'occupying?'

It can't be Jordan. Yes, Jordan illegally occupied Judea, Samaria (AKA The West Bank) and East Jerusalem in the 1948 war for 19 years after ethnically cleansing the Jewish population in this area,  but the UN never recognized these areas as Jordanian territory, Israel took it back in the Six Day war after Jordan attacked them and Jordan later gave up all claims to this area as part of their peace treaty with Israel. So it isn't Jordan Israel's occupying.

And it can't be 'Palestine' either. It never existed as a sovereign nation with established borders at all. Owning a house in say, Pennsylvania does not make it and maybe your yard a sovereign country, now does it?

So there really is no 'occupation.' According to the San Remo Accords between the League of Nations (the UN of its day) and Britain in 1922, the 22% of the Palestine Mandate that includes Judea and Samaria and what is now Israel was supposed to be the Jewish State, while the 78% of it that's now Jordan was supposed to be the Arab State. It's the only partition of the area both sides ever agreed on, and it was reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter.

What the EU and their pals at the UN are doing is pretty simple to figure out. They're simply doing what  Mark Twain predicted they would back in 1899 when the  Zionist movement was  beginning. Here's what he had to say  in a famous article on Jews he did in Harper's Magazine:

  I am not objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let the race find out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more. 

Want further proof of how the EU has it in for Israel? The recent attempt to simply pass a resolution  condemning unprovoked terrorism  by Hamas against Israel in the UN General Assembly failed dismally once Israel's enemies in the UN insisted on a two thirds majority instead of the simple majority Ambassador Haley wanted.

You know what did pass? A resolution sponsored by Ireland calling for 'the achievement, without delay”  of the implementing  of U.N. resolution 2334.

Since 2334 was a series 6 Resolution that has no status as international law,  Israel promptly rejected it, as any country not interested in national suicide would.But thanks to Barack Hussein Obama, it remains a framework for countries that want Israel gone.

And make no mistake,it definitely is about the Jews. Much of what constitutes the EU will never forgive them for Auschwitz. Or for being so successful in a region noted for failed states.

Forum: What Do You Most Like About The Holiday Season?

Every week, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What Do You Most Like About The Holiday Season?

Bookworm Room: I like Christmas music. I may be Jewish, but I think Christmas music is one of the great gifts Christians have given to the world or, at least, to America. Whether it's the old classics with their decidedly religious focus or the modern odes to winter, hearing those songs makes me happy. I dread the day when the PC police make all of that music go completely underground. Until then, once Thanksgiving is over and right up until 11:59 p.m. on Christmas day, I revel in those melodies.

Puma By Design :While I do not decorate as much as I used to because everyone are adults with their own families, the grandchildren will come over for a weekend, mid-December to help me decorate.

When they were younger, I used to take them on a day trip to Toys R Us or FAO Schwartz in mid-town Manhattan where they’d have open access to the many games and holiday props. However, since everyone is so politically correct in NYC, we now head over to Barnes and Nobles or one of the malls depending on the events.

The following day, we put up Christmas lights and the tree. Hopefully, this year, Kiki won’t knock down the tree and screw up the decorations before the next morning’s sunrise as she did last year.

After the tree is decorated, we’ll have cookies and hot chocolate or tea (sounds all Norman Rockwell, right?) While decorating, we’ll play Christmas music. They like my choice of Christmas music (thank goodness).

Once settled for the evening, I bully (well, not exactly) them into watching a Christmas movie of my choosing. Hey, I earned it and of course, they’ll moan and groan, “Oh, Grandma….really?” My grandson and granddaughter will fight for the seat closest to me until unable to stand them anymore, I switch seats allowing one to sit on the left of me and the other on the right. Case closed.

Then we’ll hang out again, Christmas Eve until about 10 p.m. at which point, their parents who waited until the final days have completed Christmas shopping take them home.

In between and all around, by the second week of December, I am in the holiday spirit whether I have decorated or not. However, once the mission has been accomplished, there is no holding me back. I often spend late evenings or since I’m such a horrible sleeper awaken to find my favorite spot in the living room where I admire the decorations, tree and lights while enjoying Christmas music preferably old school Christmas music of all genres except Hip-hop. Okay, one or two artists from the Hip-hop era.

I believe that music is God’s gift to us and his way of touching us deep within. There is a reason that it’s called joyful noise and when I’m not listening to music or have lowered it in the background, I’m like a 10-year-old enjoying my Christmas movies.

Life is good and we are blessed.

Jeffrey Avalon Friedberg: love "the prettiest sound" in the world: the call to Prayer.

The sound of goats screaming death cries as they are slaughtered. The cacophony of terrified unbelievers naked and shrieking in cold air. The crisp crackle of animal and snake hides as we unwrap our newest weapons and killing devices.

Yessss---the ssssssong of the sssssands blowing passssst usssss, under a full moon....

Ahhhhhh...nothing better....

Nothing.


Patrick O'Hannigan: I'm not actually sure what I like most about the holiday season, but I appreciate being given the chance to think aloud about it.

If you set aside some of the hymns I like on the grounds that Easter and (in the U.S., at least) the Fourth of July have also inspired music, then the forced pause over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day might be the thing I appreciate most. By then, "holiday prep" of whatever kind is done, and the questions you're left to ponder get simultaneously bigger and smaller. What I mean is that those of us inclined to such pondering are nudged by the calendar to marvel at the fact that God became Man, which leads first to the big, comforting, incredible question of "Why?"

I'm not sure whether my Jewish friends see the ecumenical and fellowship possibilities in Christmas the way that I do, but I also like how the Nativity of Jesus sits squarely on the pivot point between Jewish and Christian scriptures.

That said, nobody can think big thoughts all the time, and so by December 25 we're also playing "small ball" with questions like "Which flannel shirt do I like best?" or "Will this Irish coffee taste as good as Uncle Jim's?," and "Is the soprano soloist at the late Mass going to handle 'O Holy Night' as beautifully as Mary Beth did all those years ago?"

I think "the holidays" as a catchall phrase wrongly conflates observances of unequal rank by putting things like New Year's Eve on equal footing with more significant observances, but it's also true that seeing the confluence of sacred and secular in the month of December provides food for thought.

Rob Miller: People's attitudes. They seem to enjoy life more, to let the little things go. Oh, and using the pool and the jacuzzi in December.


Laura Rambeau Lee: For me the holiday season is about carrying on family traditions. We always have turkey for Thanksgiving; a standing rib roast for Christmas dinner; and a roast pork with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and apple sauce on New Year’s Day. We do end up working around everyone’s work schedules and don’t always celebrate on the actual day, but we get together when we all can. And with an extended family it is nice to make the day a special day when no one must run to another dinner and celebration. Since my mom passed away in 2011, I guess I have taken over the matriarch role and try to do the little things she always did. My sisters especially love the shoo-fly pies I order from Lancaster, Pa, which is one thing mom always did after we moved to Florida as we got older. I don't enjoy the shopping, not crazy about the malls and the crowds. My husband loves to shop so he takes on that task. I make the list, he fills it. I still mail out Christmas cards, too, to family and friends near and far.

The holidays can be bittersweet as we remember our loved ones no longer with us. I do love the music and have a Pentatonix CD from a few years ago that I love to play. I especially love their rendition of “Mary Did You Know?”

Now that the grandkids are 13, 11 and 3 this year they are going to help decorate the house and tree. We have a beautiful nine-foot artificial tree and lots of decorations to put up around the house. We hang stockings and after the kids leave we fill them up with fun things, practical things, and candies.

Our traditions keep us bonded through the generations. The holidays are a time to cherish our families and remember our loved ones no longer with us. It's our time to express thanks for how truly blessed we are.

 Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the 'net. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.