Toronto’s ‘modest’ little tax hike

… Ms. Chow could have levelled with voters. She could have said: Look, sorry, but we are in big trouble here and I am going to have to ask you to pay more to keep the city in the kind of shape I know you expect. Her rivals would have cried aha!, but voters would probably have elected her anyway. With a well-known name, a long record and no major opponent, she was the prohibitive front-runner right through the campaign. Voters might even have given her credit for her candour if she had simply told them to brace themselves.

She did nothing of the sort. Instead, she told them not to worry their little heads about their taxes going way up. She knew they were hurting already. She felt their pain. She couldn’t say just what the tax increase would be if she were elected, but, ya, modest, just modest.

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Opposing rallies in Toronto mark 100 days since start of Israel-Hamas conflict

Division among Torontonians over the war in Gaza was on full display Sunday as both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators held concurrent rallies downtown.

The rallies, meant to mark 100 days since the onset of the conflict, drew greater attendance than any local event connected with the war in the last several weeks, in spite of plunging temperatures and wind that made it feel like -18 C.

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DEI’s Attack Dog

Magnifying Glass on White Background

The movement for diversity, equity, and inclusion may have lost a prominent advocate in Harvard president Claudine Gay, but it continues to dominate America’s institutions. Worse, the Biden administration has apparently enlisted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), one of DEI’s most notorious ideological enforcers, in its crusade against “domestic terrorism.”

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One War and Two Visions

If you thought you knew all you need to know about the war in Gaza, think again. Much depends on where and how you get your news from. Last week I decided to do a little, obviously non-scientific, experiment by following the Gaza news through two channels: the old BBC, one of Great Britain’s most adulated institutions, and in parallel with it, the various news outlets controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran.

A number of themes emerged.

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You just might be a Democrat if

If you are fine with showing your I.D. while entering a Costco warehouse but believe it’s beyond the pale to be asked to provide an I.D. when voting for the president of the United States, you just might be a Democrat.

If you like the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” but think chants of “USA, USA” are trite, offensive, and possibly violent, you just might be a Democrat.

h/t DS

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Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish?

Post Oct 7 and the stupid grows stronger.

Some progressive Jews are embracing “diasporism” — reimagining their faith as one that blesses their lives in America and elsewhere.

Last month, on the first night of Hanukkah, more than 200 people packed an old ballroom on the third floor of a restored synagogue in Brooklyn. A few came fresh off the subway from a protest in Manhattan that was organized by left-wing Jewish groups calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

They were there to hear from Shaul Magid, 65, whose long, thin white beard and shaved head made him look more like a roadie than a rabbi. A professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth as well as (yes) a rabbi, Mr. Magid was there to spread the message elucidated in a new book, “The Necessity of Exile,” that Jews today outside Israel — 75 percent of whom live in the United States — should embrace diaspora, the state of living outside a homeland, as a permanent and valuable condition.

Progressive Israel fatigue?

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They were Israel’s eyes on the border – but their Hamas warnings went unheard

They are known as Israel’s eyes on the Gaza border.

For years, units of young female conscripts had one job here. It was to sit in surveillance bases for hours, looking for signs of anything suspicious.

In the months leading up to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, they did begin to see things: practice raids, mock hostage-taking, and farmers behaving strangely on the other side of the fence.
Noa, not her real name, says they would pass information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers, but were powerless to do more. “We were just the eyes,” she says.

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FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with ‘severe intellectual’ and ‘psychiatric’ disabilities

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is actively recruiting workers who suffer “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.

“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website states. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”

h/t XC

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Climate Dystopia: How Life Would Get Worse If Climate Alarmists Carry Out Their Agenda

She can eat her hat later.

The global climate is always changing, but contrary to the popular narrative, the science on the exact causes is far from settled. Alarmists claim that humans burning fossil fuels for energy will catastrophically ruin the climate, and they demand a “net-zero” future to save the world.

What would happen if the climate alarmists actually succeeded in the United States?

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US Jews for Hamas. Yes. Really.

So, it’s come to this. Some Jewish grads from our finest universities have learned nothing from our finest modern playwright, David Mamet.

Some time ago, with vigor, he announced, “Why I am no longer a Brain-Dead Liberal.” He found out that people were generally not good at heart.

Currently, a highly regarded Jewish professor at MIT quit his job because the place is run by brain-dead liberals. From Prof Karchmer, we get the inside scoop about being Jewish on campus, post Oct. 7, when Jews expected a touch of world sympathy, but instead, find themselves “a people who dwell alone.”

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Barbara Kay: Defamation case against antisemitic slander only the beginning

On July 10, 2020, a statement of claim for defamation was issued against Kimberley Hawkins, owner and “directing mind” of now-closed Toronto Bloor St. eatery, Foodbenders. The plaintiff, Shai DeLuca, a Canadian with Israeli citizenship, is a designer and longtime contributor to CTV’s lifestyle show, Cityline. He’s also a gay Zionist who served with the IDF as a combat engineer.

Hawkins is an ardently progressive, anti-Zionist activist. She mounted a gigantic “I (heart) Gaza” sign in Foodbenders’ window; her social media account warned “Zionists” (taken by many to mean Jews) away from her business. In short, you couldn’t ask for any antagonists more passionately divided in their beliefs about Israel or more committed to defending their corner to the bitter end.

The suit was triggered by offensive statements featuring DeLuca’s name on Foodbenders’ official Instagram account; a gravely problematic one read: “(DeLuca) is an IDF SOLDIER (aka terrorist) yet he’s using the BLM movement for likes. How can you sit here and post about BLM when you have your sniper rifle aimed at Palestinian children.”


The plaintiff’s real life embrace of the anti-white and of late Hamas supporting hate group BLM was OK but the comment about theoretically killing Palestinian kids while serving in the IDF was bad. Okey Dokey. 

Both parties should have lost. I have no sympathy for anyone who supported BLM or DEI. They didn’t seem to mind when their hate group’s targets were white people. 

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Genocide case against Israel: Where does the rest of the world stand on the momentous allegations?

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa says more than 50 countries have expressed support for its case at the United Nations’ top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the war in Gaza.

Others, including the United States, have strongly rejected South Africa’s allegation that Israel is violating the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Many more have remained silent.

The world’s reaction to the landmark case that was heard Thursday and Friday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague shows a predictable global split when it comes to the inextricable, 75-year-old problem of Israel and the Palestinians. Sunday marks 100 days of their bloodiest ever conflict.

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Raymond J. de Souza: The meaning of Justin Trudeau’s petty falsehoods

“I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win,” said Chris Christie as he announced the end of his presidential campaign before the first votes were cast in the Republican primaries.

The premise of the remark is not highly contested, that success in politics requires a level of dishonesty. Christie thus characterized his campaign’s lack of success as the price paid for honesty.

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