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A eulogy for an Israeli rabbi serves as a reminder of the debt the civilized world owes to Judaism. In Forbes, Daniel Freedman does the honors.
…The life of Rabbi Amital, an Orthodox rabbi and scholar (with his kind eyes and full beard), is a reminder that the very values that the free world holds so dear–charity, justice, and liberalism (in the classical sense)–have their roots in the Hebrew Bible and traditional Judaism. The Bible teaches lessons like the importance of hospitality (Abraham’s welcoming strangers) and the duty to fight slavery and oppression (Moses standing up to Pharaoh). The Book of Ruth is a lesson in common humanity, and the Book of Job one in principled dissent.
Moreover, many of the political freedoms that we enjoy today have their roots in the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinical commentaries that explained it. Eric Nelson outlines this in his brilliant new book The Hebrew Republic, showing, for example, how the triumph of republican government over monarchy is in large part thanks to the Bible and the rabbis. …
We have a look at more of the JournoList controversy. Howard Kurtz starts us off with a review.
To conservatives, it is a pulling back of the curtain to expose the media’s mendacity.
To liberals, it is a selective sliming based on e-mails that were supposed to remain private.
But there is no getting around the fact that some of these messages, culled from the members-only discussion group Journolist, are embarrassing. They show liberal commentators appearing to cooperate in an effort to hammer out the shrewdest talking points against the Republicans — including, in one case, a suggestion for accusing random conservatives of being racist. …
Paul Marks, in Samizdata, blogs about JournoList scandal, and wonders whether the British publishing world is employing similar underhanded tactics.
…Outwardly such magazines as Time and the Economist pretend to compete and to offer different world views (the Economist pretending to be a free market supporting journal – in spite of its support for endless bailouts and other corporate welfare, and support government “stimulus” spending). Yet Mr Carlson shows (by publishing their discussions) that high ranking people at these (and most other) “mainstream media” outlets actively cooperate, and coordinate their disinformation and propaganda campaigns for the collectivist cause.
…What is next going to be exposed? Will we find out, for example, that important people within the British publishing industry (and book trade generally) conspire to undermine books that do not fit in with their view of the world – and to promote books that do? …
… For example, the Economist has not published (over a period of years) a single review of any book that blames the economic crises on government intervention – in spite of several of these books (such as Thomas Woods “Meltdown” and Thomas Sowell’s “The Housing Boom and Bust” being best sellers in the United States). …
Actually I do not believe that their is a British book trade version of “JournoList” – but then I did not believe there was such a thing in the media either.
Jonah Goldberg closes the subject
…Journolist e-mails obtained by The Daily Caller reveal what anybody with two neurons to rub together already knew: Professional liberals don’t like Republicans and do like Democrats. They can be awfully smug and condescending in their sense of intellectual and moral superiority. They tend to ascribe evil motives to their political opponents — sometimes even when they know it’s unfair. One obscure blogger insisted that liberals should arbitrarily demonize a conservative journalist as a racist to scare conservatives away from covering stories that might hurt Obama.
Oh, and — surprise! — it turns out that the “O” in Journolist stands for “Obama.”
…As James DeLong, a fellow at the Digital Society, correctly noted on the Enterprise Blog, “The real problem with JournoList is that much of it consisted of exchanges among people who worked for institutions about how to best hijack their employers for the cause of Progressivism.”
For a liberal activist that’s forgivable, I guess. But academics? Reporters? Editors? …
Tunku Varadarajan says Charlie Rangel’s toast.
…There will be resistance to Rangel’s departure, primarily from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, for whom Rangel is, for all his flaws, a revered elder statesman. But Rangel is now indefensible, and not merely because Pelosi wants to show him the door: His is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of “racism” was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled. It is harder to strike pouting, Manichaean postures now, when a black man holds the highest office in the land. There can be no cheap and easy shaming of critics, no slick refuge in a narrative of racial oppression. …
Typical of all liberal feel good legislation, the WSJ editors review how congressional intervention to raise wages has resulted in less teens employed.
Today marks the first anniversary of Congress’s decision to raise the federal minimum wage by 41% to $7.25 an hour. But hold the confetti. According to a new study, more than 100,000 fewer teens are employed today due to the wage hikes.
Economic slowdowns are tough on many job-seekers, but they’re especially hard on the young and inexperienced, whose job prospects have suffered tremendously from Washington’s ill-advised attempts to put a floor under wages. In a new paper published by the Employment Policies Institute, labor economists William Even of Miami University in Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University in Texas find a significant drop in teen employment as a direct result of the minimum wage hikes. …
…After isolating for other economic factors and broadening their analysis to include all 32 states affected by any stage of the federal wage increase, the authors conclude that “the federal minimum-wage hikes reduced teen employment by 2.5% translating to approximately 114,400 fewer employed teens.” …