The United States didn’t elect Joe Biden because of his charismatic personality or his military past. It chose Bidenism. Israel longs for Bidenism, and it is ready for an election, now and not tomorrow.

While democracy would not be destroyed, a constitutional crisis would be sure to follow [the election], and the ultra-Orthodox parties – a vital component of any government – would extort the country for budgets and legislation at an unimaginable cost.

Israel is about to have a fourth election in two years. This is all because of one man — Netanyahu. Love him or hate him, it is clear that had he not been there, politics would be simpler.

It is unusual for a president to issue a prospective pardon before any charges are filed, but there are examples, perhaps most famously President Gerald R. Ford’s pardon in 1974 of Richard M. Nixon to prevent him from being prosecuted after the Watergate scandal.

Trump may try to checkmate any future federal probes with a profligate award of pardons, but this likely won’t be as effective as he may imagine. Indeed, abuse of the pardon power may increase the federal criminal focus on Trump himself once his presidency ends.

If the text of the pardon is too general, it could allow prosecutors to argue that a particular crime they uncover falls outside the pardon’s scope, and therefore they could proceed with a prosecution. But the more specific the pardon is, the more it will reveal about the crimes that were committed… What’s more, the president’s pardon power covers only federal crimes, leaving Trump and his family vulnerable to prosecution on state and local charges.

With Barr finding no evidence of significant fraud, Republican leaders can’t hide behind pious statements about the need to count every legal vote. The votes have been counted and Trump lost.

While some may feel tempted to praise Barr for acknowledging reality, the critical issue is why he so enthusiastically joined Trump’s attempt before Nov. 3 to delegitimize our election.

It’s funny how liberals and cable news talking heads insisted that Attorney General William Barr was an untrustworthy fiend acting as President Trump’s “personal lawyer” right up until he came out to say that the Justice Department had not found enough voter fraud to have made a difference in the 2020 election.

Surprise, surprise. Barr’s word is now gospel.

In a nation that is roughly 2% Jewish and 65% Christian, I would be a fool to think an expansive approach to religious liberty will work out well for the Jews. Each lawsuit over a publicly sponsored nativity scene or a public school’s prayers to Jesus will provide an opportunity for the court to rule on “religious liberty” in a way that could harm Jews.

The governor’s restrictions on shuls proceeded even while no such restrictions were placed on secular outlets such as bicycle shops, liquor stores and acupuncture clinics.
At the time, I thought to myself, what is he thinking? [.] He’s aware that prayer for us is not a luxury but a necessity, certainly at least as much as buying a bottle of whiskey or fixing a tire on a bike.

For Jews, our faith is directed to the exaltation of, and delight in, life. But another, dystopian and death-embracing model of community is gaining ground, whose defining prayers will be not of thanksgiving or praise, but only the Kaddish.

History suggests that Republicans would then pay—dearly—for their years of minority rule. If Republicans hope for greater success than their historical counterparts, they would do well to heed the message that a party cannot maintain power forever, and embark on a more genuinely collaborative and bipartisan approach to government. Short of that, they risk much more than their political careers.

The Electoral College is a political abomination. As I have written before, rather than protecting the influence of small states, it grants overwhelming power to a handful of states that randomly happen to have a close partisan balance, which are mostly fairly large. Worse, it allows popular vote losers to win — which has happened twice in the last 20 years. Indeed, theoretically a candidate could lose the popular vote four to one and still win the electoral vote.

A common misperception is that our Constitution protects minority rights only through the Bill of Rights. The Electoral College is a part of our “checks and balances” protections. Without the Electoral College, our major metro areas would always choose our president and make America’s rural communities and farmers serfs feeding those populations.

She hates doing it. We’ve never been huge fans of it, either. And yet, Melania Trump, an icon in the War Against Christmas, has done it again: decorated the White House… Unlike past years’ spooky, shadow-casting, and probably haunted trees, or The Shining-colored evergreens erected in 2018, Melania’s last decorations are, well, OK.

…suddenly, in retrospect, the topiaries start looking like topiaries and the twigs like twigs. We are learning, now that the first lady has given us so normal a holiday with so little to read into, that we may have been seeing something that wasn’t there this whole time.

Soon, Melania Trump will exit stage right. She won’t have to bother with this stuff any more. Until then, she does what she must. She must bide her time, as do we. The rest of us can look forward to the Christmas chapter in her rumored forthcoming memoir, and never paying this much attention to decorations again.